RELATION OF FORESTS TO 

 IRRIGATION 



BY 



GIFFORD PINCHOT 



Forester, U. S. Department of Agriculture 



T" 1 HE National Reclamation Act, serve the water supply and vastly in- 

 whose passage was directly due crease its usefulness for the purposes 

 to the personal interest and effort of of irrigation. They do so by reducing 

 the President, is of a broader national evaporation, by regulating and sustain- 

 character than many people in the East ing the flow of streams, and by help- 

 realized at the time. It will give to ing the snow water to get into the 

 those portions of the country which ground by seepage instead of into the 

 it does not directly touch far more air by evaporation. The forest is the 

 than the effect of that general reflex first and most important factor in the 

 action which the prosperity of any part water supply of the West, except the 

 of the United States must have upon water itself. 



every other. In this case there are j n t h e West the forest does not now 

 specific reasons, and of these the great- occupy nearly all the area suited for 

 est is this : That the development of j ts growth. Doubtless every man here 

 the arid West through irrigation will j s f arn iii a r with denuded slopes dotted 

 be of unmeasured importance to the w j t h t h e charred remnants of forests 

 East by the creation of more and great- w ]-,i c h have been destroyed, and with 

 er home markets, for it is by home g rea t stretches of open land, as to 

 markets first of all that our people w hich there is no apparent reason why 

 prosper. The Reclamation Act is a t i iey s h ou id no t be covered with trees, 

 national benefaction whose blessing ^he f act j s re j ias driven the forest 

 falls first and most plentifully upon f rom vast areas U p On which it should 

 the West, but which does not fail to na turally flourish, and to which it may 

 bless any portion of the Union. 1 3e restored by natural seeding or by 

 One of the fundamental facts which extensive plantations. But it is not 

 nearly every man here knows to his on ly the area of the forests which is 

 own cost is" that there is more irriga- reduced by fire. Very many forests 

 gle land in that prosperous country are traversed by fire year after year 

 we used to know as the great Ameri- an d yet not destroyed. But no_ forest 

 can Desert than there is water to irri- can be burned without suffering in 

 gate it. Water is the measure of the wria t is to you its most important func- 

 value of land, and it is water that the t i O n its capacity to store fallen rain. 

 West needs. Every addition to the Thg pro t ec tion of the forest pro- 

 water supply will extend the irrigated tectg tllg p res ent supply of water. In 

 area. When all the water now avail- many p l ac es continued and effective 

 able has been put to use (and in many protect ion will largely increase the 

 regions that time has either already steac iy flow of water in the streams, be- 

 arrived, or will not be long delayed), cause mari y forests are now in poor 

 every deduction from the water sup- con(Ution But this is only half the 

 ply will reduce the possible irngab Jf thg forests now stan dmg are 



^r^e^ered before Twelfth National Irrigation Congress at El Paso, Texas. 



