38 FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 



Mr. CURRIER. Not any. I do not know, but apparently there has 

 been an intimation that New Hampshire ought to have gone ahead 

 and established this reserve. It is too great a work for this little 

 State, and I want to state that four New England States are more 

 interested in that question than New Hampshire is. Substantially 

 every river of any consequence in New England rises right there in 

 the White Mountains, and those rivers flow into every New England 

 State except Rhode Island. Take the Connecticut in four of them. 

 The Merrimac supports two great cities in Massachusetts that would be 

 flag stations on the railroad if it was not for the water of that river- 

 Lowell and Lawrence. The Saco, that rises in the White Mountains, 

 is not utilized at all in New Hampshire. The Androscoggin is used 

 at only one point and passes on into Maine. They support great 

 cities, and the Connecticut, that flows between New Hampshire and 

 Vermont, across the Massachusetts line, is not utilized by the State of 

 New Hampshire. Every manufacturing plant on the Connecticut 

 opposite New Hampshire is located in Vermont. 



The CHAIRMAN. Of course we can not take the question of water 

 power in the stream. 



Mr. CURRIER. I am talking about navigation, not about water 

 power, although I take it that it would not be an objection in the 

 minds of this committee that it would serve to give employment to 

 tens of thousands of people if you could do that as an incident. 



The CHAIRMAN. Undoubtedly not. But mav I ask you this ques- 

 tion, whether any data has been prepared showing to what extent the 

 water power has been diminished ? 



Mr. CURRIER. I just presented it to you, four hundred days in a 

 ten-year period, four hundred days more of low water than there was* 

 ten years ago. 



The CHAIRMAN. That might be true and yet the water might not 

 be low enough to result in a loss of power. 



Mr. CURRIER. Even now we have to have an auxiliary steam plant 

 and machinery, and if we undertake to run with steam alone, with 

 coal as high as it is, we would close our plants; and all along those 

 rivers the leading industries have auxiliary steam plants. 



The CHAIRMAN. Have any data ever been prepared showing the 

 difference in actual horsepower of the water power developed now 

 and developed in a similar period? 



Mr. CURRIER. No; I would think not; except that when you have 

 got what they call the low-water period at Plymouth, you inay be 

 sure that the water is not furnishing much power at the manufac- 

 turing cities of Manchester, Lowell, and Lawrence, and that period 

 has increased forty days in a year. Pardon me if I make one sugges- 

 tion as to Mr. Pollard's proposition about the government regula- 

 tion. The lands we need to acquire can not be gotten under govern- 

 ment supervision or regulation. When you get lands on the high 

 slopes in New England, you have got to get every single thing. You 

 go in there and thin out your matured trees, and the next winter 

 the wind will bring down all those left. 



The CHAIRMAN. How do they ever get to be big, then ? 



Mr. CURRIER. Because they have grown up almost a solid mass. 

 You go in there and take out half the trees. No one has ever seen 

 a New England forest cleared out but that he finds on the high slopes 

 that the trees are blown down. 



