FOEEST LANDS FOE THE PEOTECTION OF WATEESHBDS. 39 



Mr. POLLARD. Is that on account of the shallowness of the soil? 



Mr. CURRIER. Principally that; a great many of the trees have 

 been simply turned over. I do not know that I have anything more 

 to say. 



Mr. HASKINS. Is it the lumber interests of the White Mountains or 

 the farming interests that have denuded the lands? 



Mr. CURRIER. The lumber interests. 



Mr. HASKINS. Entirely so? 



Mr. CURRIER. The lumber interests. The chairman was speaking 

 about the floods caused by the snows going off. What my friend, 

 Mr. Weeks, said about that is true. Half those lands, or great patches 

 everywhere, are cleared. I live in the mountains at home. Half of 

 the country about me is forest, and from the other half the snow 

 goes off before the snows in the forests move at all. We never have 

 freshets when we have a heavy snowfall. When we have 3 or 4 feet 

 of snow in the woods we never look for freshets, because that amount 

 of snow will stand a thirty-six hour rain before it will let out a drop. 

 We look for freshets when we have 5 or 6 inches of snow ; that is, in 

 the fall, when it all goes off with a warm rain. 



The CHAIRMAN. I notice the statement, which is attributed to Mr. 

 Ayers, to this effect : " The farms in the Connecticut Valley are 

 among the richest in the State, that is, in New Hampshire, and have 

 been less abandoned than elsewhere. There is, however, a goodly 

 acreage, amounting to 25 per cent, which was cleared land in 1850 

 and which has reverted to forests, much of it good white pine for- 

 ests." And I have seen elsewhere that the watershed of the Connec- 

 ticut Eiver above Holyoke is very much better forested now than it 

 was forty years ago. 



Mr. CURRIER. All through my own section, which is about halfway 

 up the State, in the Connecticut Valley, we have more forests than 

 we had fifty years ago. I want to say another thing. It has been 

 suggested that the diminution of stream flow has been largely caused 

 by drainage in clearing the lands. I want to say that that does not 

 apply to tEe Pemigewassett at Plymouth. All along this river there 

 is less tillage land than there was fifty years ago, and more woodland. 



The CHAIRMAN. How do you square that with the argument that 

 it is the denudation of all the woodland that creates the floods ? 



Mr. CURRIER. The denudation is at the head of these streams 

 around the White Mountains, where this enormous cutting is taking 

 place. [Applause.] We are not asking the Government to buy any 

 lands down in the low hills and the flat country. That will reforest 

 itself; it does it with marvelous quickness. My own section is a 

 white-pine section. I have a neighbor who three times in his life- 

 time has cut over his pine lands completely. 



Mr. HAWLEY. How large would the trees be ? 



Mr. CURRIER. Forty thousand feet to the acre, board measure. 



The CHAIRMAN. When you speak of the watershed of a river, I at 

 least get the idea that you mean the entire watershed. 



Mr. CURRIER. I did not mean the entire watershed. 



The CHAIRMAN. But when you say that the watershed is better 

 forested now than it was fifty years ago, it would really seem to me 

 that we ought to find out what relation that has to the flow. 



Mr. CURRIER. Not the lower reaches of the river, but the reaches 

 of the river as it comes out of the mountains. If you could see the 



