i.s 4 



THE FORESTER 



August, 



tration which has been stored for the 

 benefit of navigation. 



I was deeply impressed by what was 

 said by Mayor Eaton and by Mr. T. S. 

 Van Dyke as to the lack of information 

 by the public generally on these sub- 

 jects, and the need of a campaign to 

 arouse the interest of the general public 

 and awaken a public sentiment which 

 would demand and accomplish the solu- 

 tion of the various problems that con- 

 front us in the preservation of our forests 

 and water supplies. And I could not 

 help thinking that if the enormous im- 

 portance of these matters was generally 

 appreciated there would not be a man 

 who is now tilling an irrigated farm or 

 vineyard or orchard in Southern Califor- 

 nia who would not be here to-day. 



Every irrigator from an underground 

 supply would be here if each would 

 only stop and ask himself : "Where is 

 the source of supply of the well or the 

 tunnel from which my water comes ? 

 How long will it last ? How do I know 

 that Nature is replenishing for me the 

 supply from which I am drawing ?" 



As you watch an artesian well, every 

 one realizes that the beautiful drops that 

 are thrown up from below by the unseen 

 power to glisten and sparkle in the sun- 

 shine have not come up underground di- 

 rect from the sea. They were at some 

 time evaporated from the ocean and car- 

 ried in clouds to the mountains and pre- 

 cipitated there. Now what checked 

 them from rushing down the hillside and 

 back through stream and river to join 

 again the ocean from whence they came ? 



Somewhere in their onward course they 

 were stopped by some leafy covering 

 which held them until their course was 

 turned downward into the earth. And 

 from thence they have percolated through 

 some underground channel or stratum 

 until they have found a vent through the 

 artesian well that has brought them once 

 again to the surface. They may have 

 fallen with last winter's rainfall; they 

 may be coming from some one of " Na- 

 ture's storage reservoirs " underground, 

 which has been gradually filling for a 

 thousand years; it may be that each 



winter's rainfall is replenishing the un- 

 derground supply as fast as it is being 

 drawn off, and it may be that it is not. 



But of one thing we may be sure: If 

 we allow our mountain slopes to be de- 

 forested and permit the destruction of 

 the undergrowth and foliage which did 

 check, in their downward flow, the waters 

 that are coming to us now, our under- 

 ground reservoirs will cease to be replen- 

 ished and refilled. The waters which 

 should find their way down into the 

 earth to come up again in our wells and 

 out through our tunnels will rush down 

 the steep and bare mountain slopes in 

 torrents to the sea. And not only our 

 underground supplies but our surface 

 supplies as well will be gone, and aridity 

 will overcome our fertile fields just as it 

 has where the forests have been de- 

 stroyed. 



This need not happen and will not 

 happen if the people will wake up to 

 the possibility and the danger. All we 

 need to do to prevent it is to preserve 

 these storage reservoirs of Nature and 

 see to the maintenance of conditions that 

 will perpetually replenish our under- 

 ground reservoirs. How are we to do 

 this? By a campaign of education. It 

 is absolutely essential that the whole 

 community all through Southern Cali- 

 fornia should be aroused to the vital and 

 far-reaching importance of this great 

 subject. The people must be awakened 

 from their apathy. The dead wall of 

 indifference on the part of the people 

 generally must be broken through. 



We must unite all who realize the 

 magnitude and immediate importance of 

 the subject to preach a crusade to awaken 

 a right public sentiment about it, not 

 only in Southern California, not only in 

 the West, but all through the East as 

 well. It is a national, not a local, prob- 

 lem, and as a national problem we must 

 treat it. 



The preservation of our forests means 

 not only the preservation of water sup- 

 plies for irrigation in the West; it means 

 the preservation of water supplies 

 throughout the whole country for power, 

 for navigation, and for all the manifold 



