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years over $40,000,000, and expect to spend three or four times that 

 amount to reforest 1,000,000 acres of denuded mountain sides, the 

 soil and debris from which have been carried by the torrents of water 

 into the plain covering over 8,000,000 acres of fertile ground and 

 making it useless for agriculture." Still it is important enough here 

 to merit our consideration. 



How may the damage already done be repaired? This resolves 

 itself mainly into filling up the gulches worn into the hillsides and 

 bringing the areas overflowed by the deluge of debris into a fit con- 

 dition of farming purposes. The latter part is simply to remove 

 surface stones and add fertility enough to secure a crop. This, how* 

 ever, is subsequent to filling up the gulches, as if done before the 

 wash was arrested, it would simply be labor lost. The important 

 part of the problem then is to arrest the water flow in the gulches. 

 Attack an enemy in his weakest point. In the case of water flow it 

 is where it begins. In hilly regions, where such washes are most 

 frequent and most damaging, there is usually an abundance of stones 

 which may with advantage to the farm, be gathered and dumped into 

 the upper end of the gully, thus lowering the point at which the 

 wash begins, and to that extent lessening the destructive force of 

 the flowing water. Every foot thus gained at the upper end renders 

 the task easier. 



There are. however, extensive gulches in which such direct, unaided 

 repair would be an immense task. We must make the to-rrent itself 

 expend its power in repairing the damages it has caused. In France 

 and Germany this has developed almost into a science. The thing 

 aimed at is: First, to check the velocity of the descending water, and 

 second, to arrest permanently the soil which the water carries down- 

 ward with it. All such soil (or stone) is thus deposited where it will 

 do the best service. To accomplish these desirable objects the course 

 of the ravine is partly filled at various points with brush, which is 

 held in place, that it be not washed out, by weights such as stones, 

 logs placed transversely to the course of the gulch and firmly fixed 

 in position. It requires no explanation to- understand how so simple 

 a device as this may both retard the speed of the water and encourage 

 deposition of the earthy matters which it carries. Furthermore, the 

 water will flow in all ordinary times through the interstices. The 

 undermining process in the sides of the deepest part of the gully are 

 largely arrested. This allows chance to further bind the bank. by a 

 growth o-f willows or such species of shrubbery or trees as will grow 

 most promptly in the location. When willow brush can be obtained 

 in a living condition and so placed as to be in contact with a moist 

 soil, they may be expected to grow, and as they ascend out of the 

 depths of the ravine, to not only hold soil but to constantly rise above 

 it, by growth. 



