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To clear the ground of such a forest growth, the pioneers had indeed 
a difficult task. After a generation of fierce fighting on the part of our 
fathers that they might overcome their then common enemy, the forest, 
it is not at all surprising that it is even yet difficult to bring the present 
generation to a proper realization of the benefits of the living forest. 
All appreciate the value of the timber, but very few of the people realize 
the benefits of the forest to the country at large; nor do they yet under- 
stand the methods by which forest lands may be made as profitable as 
cultivated areas. To cut away the trees, and to bring the land under 
cultivation, appears to be the great purpose of the majority of those still 
possessing a few acres of woodland. To such an extent has the work of 
deforestation been carried on, even among the hills of southern and 
southeastern Indiana, that less than ten per cent of the original forest 
areas are still left intact. Those portions of the original forests yet stand- 
ing have in the greater number of instances not more than 30 per cent of 
their former number of trees. 
Contrary to what might have been supposed, a larger per cent of the- 
steep hill slopes has been cleared than the land of the more level regions. 
The slopes of the higher hill lands, such as are found in portions of Clark, 
Jefferson, Switzerland, Ohio, and Dearborn counties, and to an equal ex- 
tent in the river counties to the southwest and in the adjoining State of 
Kentucky, have been almost entirely denuded of their forest growth. 
Here and there, however, on land that has become valueless for agri- 
cultural purposes, nature has begun to repair the general destruction, and 
a scattering growth of bushes and young trees has sprung up. 
It is the purpose of this paper to treat of some of the questions, geo- 
logical and meteorological, as well as economic, arising from the defor- 
ested conditions found in the hills of southern Indiana. Special study. 
however, has been made of the regions comprised in the basins of Four- 
teen Mile, Indian Kentucky, Indian and Laughery creeks and the smaller 
streams emptying into the Ohio River in Clark, Jefferson, Switzerland, 
Ohio, Dearborn and Ripley counties. What may be said of this general 
region is largely applicable likewise to other localities with approxi- 
mately similar conditions. 
One of the most striking effects of the deforestation of this region 
has been upon the “immediate run off” of the streams. As could have been 
predicted, the amount of this “immediate run off,’ for any given precipita- 
tion, has rapidly increased as the forests have disappeared. The volume 
