BOTANY OF LA SAI^E COUNTY. 17 



their ordinary dimension. In June, 1897, we saw 

 where a stream ordinarily a foot wide and three inches 

 deep had been 20 rods wide and on an average 

 3^ feet deep, with a current of not less than six miles 

 per hour. Such storms do great damage by furrow- 

 ing the ploughed fields and carrying- away most of the 

 loose earth, in some places washing- out plants, in 

 others hopelessly burying- them. Besides bridg-es are 

 swept away, fences destroyed and fields covered with 

 masses of floodwood. Such storms do not occur 

 every year, but seem to become more frequent and de- 

 structive. This probably arises from the cutting 1 off 

 of timber, the drainag-e of ponds and sloug-hs, and of 

 all low, wet tracts of land by which means the water, 

 instead of collecting- in the low places as it once did 

 and soaking- into the ground, now rushes into the near- 

 est stream to swell its volume and increase its destruc- 

 tive power. 



While draining- may be a blessing-, it may be a curse 

 and productive of more damag-e than g-ood. Such work 

 must be intelligently executed to be productive of 

 g-ood and the intelligence has not always been mani- 

 fest in the execution. 



We cannot in this connection tod strong-ly call at- 

 tention to the evil effects of cutting- off the forest from 

 the lands along- our streams. And here it will be best 

 to state a few g-eneral principles. 



I. Reg-ions covered with forest receive no more rain 

 than districts destitute of trees. Other conditions: 

 distance from the sea, elevation and direction of pre- 

 vailing- winds being- the same. 



II. Destruction of forest does not diminish rainfall. 



III. Destruction of forest does facilitate the escape 

 of water, tends to produce floods and to destroy 

 spring's. 





