American Fisheries Society 103 



most pressing use for our waterways, there are others 

 of not less present value and future promise. 



Another requisite is the physical control of the run- 

 ning waters. Under settlement and cultivation the 

 sward is broken and the forest removed, so that the 

 storm waters gather in torrents, rob the soil of its 

 richest elements, fill the channels with detritus, and 

 build bars and raise floods in the lower courses. In some 

 cases we need reforestation, in others storage reservoirs, 

 in all cases flood-holding and soil-saving agriculture, 

 and in all swifter streams restraint of flow, for the 

 production of power. These are among the remedies 

 which promise control of the running waters, until the 

 rivers are harnessed and turned to human benefit. 



Any comprehensive plan for waterway improvement 

 will involve prevention of floods by means of farsighted 

 forestry, intensive farming, and reservoir construction, 

 whereby the waters will be compelled to flow clear as 

 they did before nature's balance between rainfall and 

 forest was disturbed by settlement and industry. 



The cost of relief will be large, yet from the stand- 

 point of traffic alone not too large. In addition, the 

 prevention of soil-wash and the purification of the 

 streams will more than balance the entire cost. 



A value of running water, not fully recognized, lies in 

 its power, a quantity doubtless sufficient to drive mills 

 and trains and boats, and furnish light and heat and 

 domestic motors after our coal is gone. Hitherto this 

 resource has been much neglected. 



The control of the water involves reclamation of arid 

 lands by irrigation and of overflow lands by drainage. 

 Let me give you a few words of Kdward Carpenter's 

 account of Chinese cultivation by irrigation : 



In the interior of China, along low-lying plains and great river val- 

 leys, and by lake sides, and far away up into hilly and even mountain- 

 ous regions, 



Behold ! an immense population rooted in the land, 

 The most productive on the whole earth. A garden — a land of rich 

 crops, of rice and tea and silk and sugar and cotton. 



