36 
lands. As a result the population and wealth of many of the hill counties 
have been gradually and greatly diminishing. 
Many of the streams, flowing down steep beds in their short courses 
from the divides to the Ohio, at one time furnished valuable water power. 
They are now useless. Were it possible to control such streams as Four- 
teen Mile, Indian Kentucky, Indian and Laughery creeks and many others 
in Clark, Jefferson, Switzerland, Ohio, Dearborn, Ripley and other coun- 
ties in southern Indiana, very valuable water power could be obtained. 
Under the present condition of floods and drouths, however, they are 
valueless aS a source of power. Streams that thirty years ago furnished 
abundant power for mills during ten months of the twelve now are even 
without flowing water for almost half the time. 
The alternate floods and drouths have had a serious effect also upon 
the animal life of these streams. ‘The great volume of muddy and rap- 
idly-flowing water sweeps thousands of the smaller fish from their proper 
habitats into larger pools, where they become a prey to their own kind. 
On the other hand, drying up of the pools of almost every small and of 
very many of the larger streams causes the destruction of the young of 
our most valuable game and food fishes as well as of minnows and of 
crayfish upon which the more highly-prized fishes feed. In the flooded 
streams following the unusual freshets of March and April of the present 
year bass and other species of fish ascended the smaller streams almost 
to their very sources for the purpose of spawning. The severe drouth of 
the late summer and autumn months dried up the pools and caused the 
death of such quantities of the young fish and other animal life that the 
odor of their decaying bodies was very offensive to persons dwelling along 
the streams near the pools. It would be quite within the truth to say that 
several wagon loads of minnows and the young of our food fishes thus per- 
ished this season in the tributaries of Big and Indian Kentucky creeks in 
Jefferson County alone. Some of the young bass were removed to larger 
pools, but thousands upon thousands were destroyed. It would seem al- 
most useless to restock our streams with bass and other valuable food and 
game fishes if the periodic floods and drouths are to continue and to grow 
in magnitude and severity. 
The points already discussed represent but a part of the evils result- 
ing from deforestation among the hills and valleys of our southern coun- 
ties. We need not speak of the more manifest economic phases of the 
subject, such as the failure of the timber and the fuel supply, and the 
