248 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



J. S. EM KEY, OF LAWRENCE, KAN. 



NATIONAL LECTURER OF THE IRRIGATION CONGRESS. 



New York Board of Trade and Transportation, at a 

 late meeting have brought this forestry question 

 freshly and forcibly to mind as a prime fnctor in 

 aid of irrigation. We need a permanent and scien- 

 tific forest policy established in the United States, 

 and this need is urgent. 



The early creation by Congress of a National 

 Forest Commission is imperatively demanded by 

 the agricultural interests of the whole land; I say 

 the whole land, because this matter does not per- 

 tain to the arid regions alone. It vitally concerns 

 the humid states as well. 



Mr. Secretary Morton is credited with saying if 

 the Adirondack mountain region be suffered to 

 have its mountains and valleys stripped of their 

 forests, then, even the city of New York will not 

 have a sufficient supply of good water for its do- 

 mestic purposes. Our people hardly know of the 

 vast inroads to-day being made upon our timber 

 areas by the wants of trade and commerce. That 

 single industry, pulp, is annually eating up our 

 spruce lumber at an enormous rate. One manufact- 

 urer asserts that it takes a hundred acres of spruce 

 trees every year to enable him to furnish paper 

 enough for any one of our great morning daily 

 papers. More than a hundred million logs a year 

 go into the remorseless mass of this single interest, 

 and the case is for a yet increasing supply from 

 this one species of forest trees. Then turn to the 

 mountain regions of arid America, and observe 

 how great is this want on destruction of our scant 

 timber supply. 



Major Powell tells us that he has witnessed one 

 fire destroy more timber in the mountains than 

 the whole State of Colorado has had a legitimate 

 use for since it was first settled; and he adds that 

 he has seen many such fires. 



'Tis said that the Ohio river has been lower the 

 present year, and for a longer time, than was ever 

 known before. This wholesale destruction of trees 

 has already changed local climatic conditions un- 

 favorably; it has substituted surface for subsoil 

 drainage; and it has almost dried up many 

 streams, all over our land, on which our mills 

 rely. 



The lessons of history should not be forgotten 

 by us, touching this subject. But our trouble is 

 that the average American who is making money 

 in using growing timber, taken from Uncle Sam's 

 dominions, does not take kindly to these lessons. 

 Indeed he does not greatly relish this taking of 

 lessons from anybody. He is in for immediate 

 returns, come from where they may, and how they 

 may. 



The disappearance of an empire that once flour- 

 ished in our Southwest is to be attributed to the 

 deforesting of that fair region of sunshine, blessed 

 with the most health-giving climate in the world. 



The decay of the political ascendency of Spain 

 must be charged up to the loss and waste of her 

 forests. France deforested the mountains and 

 hillsides of her fairest provinces to pay for Napo- 

 leon's wars. China, India, North and South Africa 

 have all, in turn, been notable sufferers from the 

 wanton waste of their forests. Shall we not call a 

 halt by law? Why not have a National Forest 

 Commission to study our public timber lands, re- 

 serves and parks; to ascertain their condition and 

 extent; to discover their relation to the public 

 welfare and to existing local needs of the people; 

 to find out what portions of the public timber can 

 and should be kept as such; and to prepare a plan 

 for the general management of the public timber 

 lands in accordance with the well-known princi- 

 ples of forestry. 



I close as I began by asserting that we never can 

 successively people the great plains and the 

 mountain states beyond, unless we put trees as 

 nature once did put them, all the way from the sub- 

 humid belt to the Pacific waters, and protect them 

 by the strong arm of both Federal and State law. 



PUSH AND PROGRESS EVERYWHERE. 



IN California and all the coast States there seems 

 to be increased push and progress. With the 

 building of three railroads at Stockton, with 

 an average of nine building permits issued per 

 day during the year at Los Angeles, with the com- 

 pletion and operation of the great electric power 

 plant at Sacramento, and the projection of half a 



WM. REECE, OF FALLS CITY, NEB. 



AUTHOR OF "ATMOSPHERIC IRRIGATION" IN THIS NUMBER. 



