FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 101 



juriously. If the development of irrigation is ever carried to the length that 

 we hope it may be, it will cause a heavy drain upon the low-water flow of the 

 Missouri. Sacramento, San Joaquin. and the Columbia rivers (not important 

 as to this stream), the only navigable waterways of consequence that are 

 affected by it. Except for this fact of drawing water from the stream, irri- 

 gation has no relation to navigation. 



Forestry, irrigation, and prevention of soil wash are all related to the con- 

 servation of the vegetable resources of the country. They are kindred purposes 

 and should naturally fall under the same administrative control. Navigation is 

 a function of transportation, which is a very different subject. Water power 

 is becoming more and more closely related to it, and these two subjects natu- 

 rally go together. It must not be expected that the character of works for river 

 regulation can be materially changed by means of reservoirs, forests, or soil- 

 wash prevention. Levees and bank protection, locks and dams, dikes and 

 dredging will continue to be standard methods of river improvement in the 

 future as in the past. The accumulated experience of centuries in all civilized 

 countries can not be set aside in a moment. In particular, flood protection is 

 not likely ever to find any complete substitute for levees. They have been 

 used extensively the world over throughout recorded history. People who think 

 only of the Mississippi and the Po. when levees are mentioned, little understand 

 to what an extent " diking " is resorted to wherever rich bottom lands have to 

 be guarded against floods or tides. Some of the Quest agricultural lands in 

 the world are behind levees where almost perfect security is felt. No class of 

 river control is in more extensive use, none is better understood, and from 

 none has the world, throughout its history, derived greater security and benefit. 



Municipalities, like Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and Kansas City, must look in the 

 main to their own efforts for protection against floods. In particular they 

 must reject absolutely the delusive promises of forestry. These cities are tres- 

 passers upon grounds dedicated by Nature to a condition of overflow. They 

 have occupied these grounds and placed themselves in the way of the floods 

 deliberately and with their eyes open. They have gone farther than this, and 

 iu many instances have encroached upon the channels and have thus made the 

 Hoods worse than they used to be. It is not for them now to look for outside 

 deliverance, but they themselves should grapple courageously with the problem. 

 In most cases these problems admit, if not of complete solution, at least of a 

 very large measure of relief. The maxim that Providence helps them who help 

 themselves may also apply to the Government. Cooperation in connection with 

 its regular work, either in channel improvement or in the building of reservoirs, 

 would doubtless be given. The disposition which must be met and overcome is 

 to let things go as they are, trusting blindly to chance to deal more kindly in 

 the future. This supineness of spirit and the enervating reliance upon indefinite 

 future relief through the agency of the Government must be replaced by self- 

 reliance, and these great industrial centers must rise in their own might and 

 free themselves from their bondage to these ever-recurring catastrophies. In 

 Boston. Chicago. Galveston. San Francisco, and even in that lusty young giant 

 of the Northwest, Seattle, are examples enough of what an aroused civic spirit 

 can do in the direction of self-aid. 



The part that reservoirs will play in the larger problems of channel improve- 

 ment and flood control on the great rivers will be in the nature of an insur- 

 ance. Every cubic foot of water taken from the crest of a flood and released 

 when the rivers are lowest is pro tanto a benefit. If the great floods of the 

 Mississippi can be cut down by so much as a foot through reservoir storage, it 



The author is not closely familiar with the situation at Pittsburg and Cin- 

 cinnati, but he is familiar with that at the two Kansas Citys where, in 1903, the 

 greatest loss occurred that any American city ever sustained at the hands of a 

 river flood. He speaks from the results of careful study on the ground when he 

 states with the utmost positiveness that for approximately $10,000,000, with 

 such aid as might reasonably be expected from the Government on the Mis- 

 souri River front, the flood problem of the Kaw and Missouri in that hive of 

 industrial enterprise known as the West Bottoms can be solved absolutely; the 

 too small area of these bottoms can be increased by upward of 200 acres; two- 

 thirds of the bridges in the same area can be eliminated ; that prodigious bar- 

 rier to free movement the Kaw River-^-can be practically removed or placed 

 where it will not be in the way ; and the general situation can be so improved 

 that the resulting benefits, wholly apart from that of flood protection, would be 

 well worth the cost. 



