110 FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 



would be greater on steep slopes than elsewhere. Seeing that if the land were 

 absolutely level there would be no tendency at all for the water to run off, so 

 that it would all either percolate or be absorbed, or evaporate, and seeing that 

 flat lands upon which forests will grow are generally suitable and must sooner 

 or later be used for cultivation, and seeing, also, that Colonel Chittenden has 

 asserted that newly plowed laud has probably a retentive capacity greater than 

 the forest ground, the difficulty of reconciling some of these statements will be 

 seen. 



In the recent work of Huff el, " Ecoiioinie Forestiere," for example, a detailed 

 discussion of many of these points will be found, and the fallacy of Colonel 

 Chittenden's last remark above quoted is there abundantly shown. 



Colonel Chittenden refers to some foreign publications, particularly to the 

 reports of the Tenth International Navigation Congress, held at Milan, in 1905. 

 With reference to this he says : " While all the writers heartily favored forest 

 culture the opinion was practically unanimous that forests exert no appreciable 

 influence on the extremes of flow in rivers." The important part of this quota- 

 tion is the first clause, and not the last. It is true, and it is a very significant 

 fact, that all the writers urged the preservation of the forests on the mountain 

 sides, or precisely what is contemplated by the White Mounta in-Southern 

 Appalachian bill. As foreign testimony may be of value in this connection, as 

 showing the dependence of the interests of navigation upon the preservation of 

 the forests, it may be worth while to give extracts from some of these reports. 



Mr. Lafosse, the French delegate, says : 



" If the destruction of forests is to be deplored it is most of all on the moun- 

 tain that the cutting away of timber is to be feared. It is not alone the supply of % 

 the springs and the discharge of the streams which are in danger ; it is the very 

 existence of the rivers themselves. The stream which can be utilized disap- 

 pears, to give place to the devastating torrent. 



" The soil swept bare of its forests, exhausted by the abuses of \grazing, loses 

 quickly its vegetable stratum. Washed periodically, and carried away by melt- 

 ing snow and summer storms, it is soon disaggregated. The waters run toward 

 the low points, rolling before them gravel and boulders, and even tearing out 

 loose sections of rock. A thousand rivulets cut out beds, the torrent is formed. 

 Scours begin, the banks are broken down, and a mass of mud, stones, and rocks 

 invades the valley, destroying everything as it passes." 



Mr. Wolfshiitz, a delegate from Austria, while admitting that excessive floods 

 are not appreciably checked by forests, writes as follows: 



" For economical reasons reaft'orestations will have to be confined to the 

 steeper mountain slopes, 'which are of little use for other cultivation. Here 

 the forest will have a beneficial influence by making the soil firmer and more 

 compact and by preventing erosion and washing down, and thus any excessive 

 alteration and the formation of detritus, which would shoal and silt up the 

 water courses. Such forests further retard the melting of the snows in spring 

 and lessen the violence of spring high water. It is thus advisable in the 

 interests of navigation to spare and to attend to the forest. There is no simpler, 

 cheaper, nor more effective means for securing the mountain slopes and for 

 keeping the pebble shoals down. In this respect, forests have incoutestably had 

 a beneficial influence upon the floods of the large rivers. Beyond this, however, 

 no further measurable influence upon the high waters of rivers can be credited 

 to them. 



"As regards the occurrence of high floods in the large rivers, the forests 

 can not have any noteworthy influence. As regards the increase in the 

 ground-water level and in the replenishment of springs, the forests have, in the 

 plains, no more influence than the open ground, and it is only in the mountains 

 that this action can be rated at any higher figure. In the mountains, however, 

 the main office of the woods will be to prevent the denudation and erosion of 

 the surface, the formation of detritus, and the silting up of the river beds with 

 mud, sand, and pebbles." 



Mr. Riedel, of Vienna, is very emphatic as to the benefits of forests. He 

 shows the terrible results which have been brought about by their destruction 

 in various parts of Europe, and with reference to Germany states that " in 

 Germany, also, reasonable bounds were not everywhere kept to, and the effects 

 of the progressing deforestation made themselves apparent on the one hand in 

 scarcity of timber and on the other in the impoverishment of pereuniel 



a The translations were made abroad and the quotations are given just as 

 printed. 



