of 



drainage, upon which the forest insists, is much 

 slower and steadier than the surface drainage 

 of a treeless place. The tendency of the forest 

 is to take the water of the widely separated 

 rainy days and dole it out daily to the streams. 

 The forest may be described as a large, ever- 

 leaking reservoir. 



The forest is so large a reservoir that it rarely 

 overflows, and seepage from it is so slow that it 

 seldom goes dry. The presence of a forest on a 

 watershed tends to give the stream which rises 

 thereon its daily supply of water, whether it 

 rains every day or not. By checking evapora- 

 tion, the forest swells the volume of sea-going 

 water in this stream, and thereby increases its 

 water-power and makes it more useful as a deep 

 waterway. Forests so regulate stream-flow that 

 if all the watersheds were forested but few floods 

 would occur. Forest-destruction has allowed 

 many a flood to form and foam and to ruin a 

 thousand homes. A deforested hillside may, in 

 a single storm, loose the hoarded soil of a thou- 

 sand years. Deforestation may result in filling 

 a river-channel and in stopping boats a thou- 



130 



