74 



FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 



TABLE 1. Gauge records of certain rivers of the United States Highest and 

 lowest stages for each year Continued. 



CONNECTICUT. 



The point should be fully recognized that these records are valueless for 

 establishing either side of the forestry argument unless they clearly indicate 

 a new tendency in river flow. It is not enough to cite a few isolated cases. In a 

 period of, say, two hundred years, there must be a record year for high and one 

 for low water. Is there any reason why it might not occur this year as well as 

 earlier? There must be clear evidence of permanent change before any con- 

 clusion can be legitimately drawn. In two instances such a tendency may 

 possibly be claimed, the Ohio at Fittsburg and the Connecticut at Holyoke, 

 which show, in the past few years, a greater frequency of high waters than 

 for some years previously. To whatever extent this may be true, it is certainly 

 not due to deforestation. The change in the forested areas on the water-sheds 

 of either of these streams has been relatively very slight in the past twenty 

 years. The great inroad into the timber of the upper Ohio took place many 

 years ago. Since that time many cleared areas have grown up to timber while 

 new areas have been cut. The change one way or the other, in recent years, 

 compared with the total area, is altogether insignificant. The Connecticut 

 watershed above Holyoke has a greater forested area than it had forty years 

 ago. This is due to the abandonment of former farms which, in many instances, 

 have grown up to timber. It is doubtful if the recent cutting in the White 

 Mountains offsets this, and, so far as snow melting is concerned, what cutting 

 there has been is certainly in favor of uniformity of flow. 6 



In the. period of thirty-four years from 1874, the Ohio River at Pittsburg 

 rose above 15 feet on the gauge 148 times. In the first half of this period, 68 

 of these freshets occurred and 80 in the second half. The mean for the first 

 half was 19.3 feet and 20.2 feet for the second half. The mean of the lowest 

 waters of the first half was 0.3 foot and 1.0 feet for the second half. In Transac- 

 tions, American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LVIII, p. 31, is a twenty -year 

 volumetric record of the Connecticut, which indicates somewhat higher high 

 waters during the last half of the period. But in this case, as at Pittsburg, 

 higher low waters are also indicated. In fact, in both cases, the greater run- 

 off in the later period was clearly due to greater precipitation. 



6 I have seen in the last few years abandoned farms (abandoned because of 

 their unprofitableness) on the western slopes of the Allegheny Mountains, 

 which are almost impenetrable forests of thrifty trees suitable for making 

 mine posts and telegraph poles. There are, of course, large. areas subject to fires 

 at intervals of a few years, but that they are subject to such recurrent fires Is 



