10 



MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS 



A Word on the 



Report of Willis Moore 



Concerning Forest Influences 



BY PROF. FILIBERT ROTH. 

 The friends of forestry, the advocates of con- 

 servation, and with them the people of the United 

 States, East and West, North and South alike, 

 are before Congress with a simple and modest 

 request asking for a law which shall preserve the 

 forests of the Appalachians, both North (White 

 Mountains), and South. The reasons for this 

 request are primarily : 



1. All the lands of these mountains are in 

 private hands and the forests are cut by man 

 and devastated by fires as fast as the owners 

 find it practicable and profitable to do so. 



2. This devastation of our forests in the 

 Eastern United States has converted millions 

 of acres of forest into unsightly and unused 

 waste lands ; it has ruined whole counties in the 

 level district of the Lake Region, it has ruined 

 entire mountain ridges in Pennsylvania; it has 

 ruined thousands of acres of the very moun- 

 tains under consideration and is today extending 

 clear up to timber line in that most famous of 

 all our mountain tracks, the Presidential Range, 

 stretching its hideous hand of pillage and de- 

 struction up the slopes of Mt. Madison, Jeffer- 

 son and Washington, the grand old domes, dear 

 to millions of our people. 



3. Unless the Government interferes, this 

 devastation will continue with increasing rapid- 

 ity and it will be but few years when practically 

 all of these mountain lands will be denuded of 

 their protective forest cover. 



4. This denudation of the mountains in many 

 places has resulted in a complete removal of 

 all soil, laying bare the solid rock and thus 

 preventing all future forest growth. In other 

 places thousands of acres have been washed in- 

 to unsightly and useless gully lands, and 

 throughout the mountains and over thousands of 

 acres, all intermediate stages of erosion, deteri- 

 oration and destruction can be seen. 



5. This erosion and gullying has produced 

 natural paths for the water, and during every 

 rain or thaw the waters rush down through 

 these channels and this leaves the ground and 

 the mountains at far greater speed than they 

 would, if these innumerable gullies, runs or nat- 

 ural ditches did not exist. Man, in other words, 

 is causing the natural digging of drains on 

 land where no sane man would wish to have a 

 drain, but where common sense would indicate 

 the necessity of creating every possible obstacle 

 and every means which would keep the water 

 from gathering into runs and from rushing 

 into streams and out of the mountains. 



6. The faster the waters collect and rush 

 down the slopes, the more they erode the land 

 and the more powerful they are to carry away 

 the soil, so that this evil is one which not only 

 continues but is getting worse the longer it lasts. 



7. The earth which is thus washed out in the 

 creation of these gullies and in the removal of 

 soils from the slopes is rushed into the streams 

 and sooner or later finds its way into the naviga- 

 ble parts of the rivers below, where every inch 

 of depth of water is precious. 



8. With the forest and other obstacles re- 

 moved and with innumerable ruts, gullies and 

 runs facilitating its speedy run off, the waters 

 rush off the mountains much faster and therefore 

 have less time to soak into the earth. But in 

 times of little or no rain, the streams depend for 

 their supply largely, often entirely, on water 

 which has been stored in the soil and which slow- 

 ly, but steadily seeps out to feed the stream. 

 The rushing off of the waters on the surface 

 and in the drains and runs reduces the storage 

 of water and thereby means less water during 

 low water times; it means less water in the 

 rivers, at the very time when most needed. 



Forests Should Be Retained. 



9. The forests of these mountains have been 

 and should be a great and permanent condition 

 covering S.V.IO'Y of all the mountain area. This 

 great regulator is a natural condition, its estab- 

 lishment and maintenance therefore, is not a 



matter of costly construction and doubtful util- 

 ity like artificial reservoirs. It grows of its own 

 accord, and all it asks, is that man does not wil- 

 fully destroy it. 



10. The establishment and maintenance of a 

 forest cover on these mountains is not one of 

 great expense, to the people. The forests on 

 these mountains, in due time, will be self-sup- 

 porting and will amply pay back such capital as 

 is put into the purchase of the lands. 



11. This forest cover is the only regulation 

 which man can maintain in these mountains, 

 which is assuredly feasible, practicable, and per- 

 manent. Some artificial reservoirs, no doubt will 

 be built in time. An extensive set of such res- 

 ervoirs would mean displacement of railways, 

 highways, farm homes, etc. It would mean the 

 making of lakes out of the very bottom lands 

 which today are the only lands on which farm- 

 ing is successful and permanent. Such reservoirs 

 would mean the building of many dams and bring 

 with them the dangers of flood catastrophes. 

 And in the end, all reservoirs would certainly till 

 up with mud unless the entire system is safe- 

 guarded by a forest cover on the mountains. 



12. The forest cover is not taking lands which 

 should be used for other purposes, and does not 

 prevent such use at any future time. Though 

 among the oldest settled regions of the country, 

 not 5 per cent of the real mountain lands are 

 used agriculturally. Wherever farming is suc- 

 cessful, it is in the valleys on good bottom and 

 bench lands which would never be disturbed by 

 the enterprise requested. 



Moore's Statements Silly. 



These mountain forests are valuable in many 

 other ways, they produce timber, they serve as 

 places of recreation to thousands of people, and 

 they are worth millions for their beauty alone, 

 but since Congress believes itself bound by Con- 

 stitution to consider the matter from the stand- 

 point of stream regulation, the above reasons 

 are the ones emphasized in support of the Weeks 

 bill. 



These reasons have evidently appealed to Con- 

 gress before, for the Senate has at three different 

 times passed a bill for this purpose and the 

 House lias done so once. But again the opposi- 

 tion appears and as its champion the chief of 

 the Weather Bureau, Willis L. Moore, who in a 

 "Report mi the influence of forest on climate 

 and on floods" seeks to refute the above reasons 

 and the common belief in the influences of the 

 forest. This report was printed at the direction 

 of the House Committee on Agriculture, as is 

 noted on the front page, and was evidently writ- 

 ten for the use of this Committee. To appear as 

 argument in this .connection it may be said that 

 the very title of the paper is misleading. For it 

 makes it appear that there is controversy as to 

 climate and floods when in reality no such discus- 

 sion exists. There is no one claiming, in con- 

 nection with this preservation of the Appalachian 

 Mountain forests that they affect the climate of 

 the United States and even the increase of the 

 local rainfall does not appear as an important 

 or general claim. And yet even as to this seem- 

 ingly simple matter of local rain, Mr. Moore ad- 

 mits (see p. 2) in trying to refute a statement 

 of Mr. Baily Willis of the United States Geo- 

 logical Survey : "It would be difficult to either 

 confirm or disprove this statement of Mr. ll'illis." 

 He might have left out his "difficult," and sim- 

 ply admitted that Mr. Willis' statement that 

 the vapors rising from a forest cool the air and 

 may again be condensed into rain, rests on pure 

 and simple physics, capable of experimental 

 proof, and that it is a fact which no one can 

 refute. Mr. Moore, however, prefers to add: 

 "Certain it is that the rain is precipitated largely 

 from air masses that exist at a considerable dis- 

 tance from the surface of the earth, etc." just 

 as if he or anyone else could tell whether the 

 water in a rain drop came from Syracuse or 

 Utica or any particular place. 



Influence of Floods. 



As regards the second part of the title, the 

 "floods," 'it is evident that this word has been 

 used with widely different meaning, and through- 

 out the paper tends to mislead. There is no one 

 claiming that a forest cover would prevent a 



cloud burst or one of those remarkable rain- . 

 storms where several inches of water fall within 

 an hour and thereby lead to destructive floods 

 (usually merely local) and no one would claim 

 that the forests prevent a disastrous thaw such 

 as we now witness in the Cascades of Washing- 

 ton and elsewhere. These are catastrophes, like 

 a cyclone and just as we do not expect a house 

 to withstand or prevent such a cyclone, so we 

 do not expect the impossible of the forest. But 

 both the house and the forest do, even during 

 these catastrophes, what they are able to do, and 

 they usually do a great deal and we believe in 

 them. As stated above the claim for the forest 

 is that it prevents washing and gullying and in 

 addition it helps to keep the soil in such condi- 

 tion that water can be stored in the ground, and 

 by its tree tops, its brush and debris it furnished 

 innumerable obstacles on every acre of ground 

 which prevent the waters from gathering rapidly 

 and rushing from the slope. On the Appalachian 

 mountains this regulator means just these things 

 and means not merely an occasional affair of a 

 few acres, but means a cover for SO-90% of all 

 the land and a cover which is effective winter 

 and summer, one which never fails and one 

 which maintains and renews itself. If then, in 

 exceptional years an .unusual rainstorm produces 

 extraordinary conditions, the forest will still do 

 its share ai*l it will do all that it ever does, and 

 in many cases this will mean the difference be- 

 tween a "freshet" or high water and a disastrous 

 flood. Similarly it is not claimed that forest can 

 protect reckless people who are determined to 

 build their houses on flood lands and to crowd 

 the river into an impossible channel as has been 

 done in many places. The forest is no panacea, 

 but this fact nowise lessens its enormous in- 

 fluence for good. 



Some Political Clap-Trap. 



In his introduction Mr. Moore mentions th 

 ,fact that this forest protection "may involve 

 expenditure of hundreds of millions of dolla 

 and the employment for years to come of thpu 

 ands of public officials. The first part of this 

 a mis-statement of facts, and deals with a stf 

 ject upon which Mr. Moore is evidently inrom[ 

 tent to speak, and the second part is a play 

 the dislike of our people for officialdom. Wli 

 this sort of political clap-trap has to do with 

 scientific expose of forest influences is difficult 

 see. ' Certainly there can be no objection to 

 enterprise which will keep millions of acres 

 mountain .lands in a productive condition rathe 

 than allow them to become useless wasteland 

 simply because it may give employment to mar 

 people. 



Mr. Moore then proclaims himself a friend 

 the forest, and says that there are abundant rea- 

 sons why they should be protected. He then 

 enlarges upon the necccssity of having plow land 

 and of feeding our people and says, (p. 4) : "/ 

 beliere that forest should be preserved for tliein- 

 selvcs alone or not at all." Just what this means 

 the reader may judge for himself; that it is 

 irrelevant to forest influences, is clear enough. 



Again he says (and it is also printed in italics) 

 page 4: "And there can be no valid objection t" 

 decreasing the area (of forest) where homes 

 and well-fed people take the place of wild animals 

 and the wilderness." When we remember that 

 these mountains were settled about as much as 

 they are now when Iowa was Indian country 

 and when we further remember that the 

 farm lands in the United States are hardly halt 

 used and tilled, and that millions of acres of the 

 best of lands are not even settled, this statement 

 partakes the smack of the campaign document 

 and has certainly no place in a discussion of this 

 kind. 



Mr. Moore then proceeds to discuss at length 

 the "effect of forest on climate;" the "desiccation 

 of Asia;'* "local climatic influences," "///< 

 on temperature." and other utterly irrelevant mat- 

 ter. Incidentally he makes a "plea for tolerance 

 of opinion," and discredits the "recollections "I 

 the oldest inhabitants." He next takes up the 

 "effect of forest on flood" and admits (p. 13): 

 "Tin's is a tiini/led problem, since the results must 

 depend upon the slope of the (/round, the nature 

 and condition of the soil, the nature of the forest. 

 etc." And further on (p. 16) without any real 



