of 



ture. Considering the many influences of the 

 forest that are beneficial to agriculture, it would 

 seem as though ideal forest environments would 

 be the best annual assurance that the crops of 

 the field would not fail and that the soil would 

 most generously respond to the seed-sower. 



So well is man served in the distribution of the 

 waters and the management of their movements 

 by the forests, that forests seem almost to think. 

 The forest is an eternal mediator between winds 

 and gravity in their never-ending struggle for 

 the possession of the waters. The forest seems 

 to try to take the intermittent and ever- varying 

 rainfall and send the collected waters in slow 

 and steady stream back to the sea. It has 

 marked success, and one may say it is only to 

 the extent the forest succeeds in doing this that 

 the waters become helpful to man. Possibly 

 they may need assistance in this work. Any- 

 way, so great is the evaporation on the moun- 

 tains of the West that John Muir says, "Cut 

 down the groves and the streams will vanish." 

 Many investigators assert that only thirty per 

 cent of the rainfall is returned by the rivers 



128 



