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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



VOL. XXV 



DECEMBER, 1919 



NO. 312 



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NATIONAL FORESTS AND THE WATER SUPPLY 



BY SAMUEL T. DANA* 



FEW people need to be reminded that the prosperity 

 of the West depends largely upon an adequate 

 supply of water for irrigation. Water, rather than 

 land, is the open sesame to the agricultural development 

 of the semiarid regions. Vast areas of rich soil await 

 only water to make them "blossom like the rose." To 

 other vast areas water has already been brought from 

 varying dis- 

 tances , and 

 these are now 

 among the most 

 productive of 

 all our agricul- 

 tural lands. Ir- 

 rigation alone 

 is responsible 

 for the sugar- 

 beet fields of 

 Utah, the al- 

 falfa fields of 

 Idaho, and the 

 orange groves 

 of California. 



So literally 

 has water 

 meant wealth 

 to the Rocky 

 Mountains and 

 Pacific Coast 

 States that the 

 "Golden West" 

 no longer need 

 base its claim to the title on the magic metal that 

 brought it fame and prosperity in the early days. The 

 gold of the grain field and of the citrus grove is now 

 worth more than the gold of the mine. The $247,000,000 

 which represents the annual value of the crops produced 

 on the 150,000 farms comprising the 13,200,000 acres of 

 irrigated land in the West is nearly three times as great 

 as the value of the precious metals produced annually 

 in the same region. Colorado, preeminently a land of 

 minerals, now produces each year on irrigated lands a 



HOW THE FOREST GIVES SERVICE 



What the National Forests 



crop worth more than the entire product of its mining 

 industries and approximately twice as much as the out- 

 put of precious metals. California, the "Golden State," 

 contributes annually nearly four times as much wealth in 

 crops as in precious metals. 



If the precipitation were as evenly distributed in the 

 West as it is in the East, there would not be the need 



for irrigation 

 that now exists, 

 and the main 

 purpose of the 

 National For- 

 ests would be 

 simply timber 

 product ion. 

 But it is not 

 evenly distrib- 

 uted, and that 

 is where the 

 trouble lies. 

 Except for a 

 narrow strip 

 along the Pa- 

 cific Coast 

 from San 

 Francisco north 

 to the Canad- 

 ian line, the 

 great bulk of 

 the precipita- 

 tion occurs in 

 the mountains. 

 Throughout the Coast Ranges, the Cascades and Sierra 

 Nevadas, and the Rocky Mountains and Colorado Plateau 

 the rain and snowfall is far greater than in the inter- 

 mediate valleys and plateaus. 



The result is that the majority of water users depend 

 for their supply on water that originates a considerable 

 distance away. Some of the most productive agricultural 

 lands in the region receive hardly more than enough 

 precipitation to support a desert vegetation, while the 

 evaporation is correspondingly great. Greeley, Colorado ; 



can to the water user may be summed up in one word "service"-— 

 service that is none the less real because it is not always obvious and because its exact value can 

 not always be expressed in dollars and cents. Every user of water which originates in the National 

 Forests — and this includes by far the greater number of water users throughout the West — must 

 look to the Forests for safeguarding his supply. 



•Courtesy U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service. 



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