1906 FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 43 



preservation and restoration. With the character of numerous tidal streams 

 tremendous development which has has been radically changed, and thous- 

 been taking place in the great Ameri- ands of acres in rice plantations have 

 can desert, and which is yet going on, been ruined. With the mountains cov- 

 the question of preserving the forests ered with dense forests, these streams 

 to conserve and regulate the flow of were not subject to sudden and dan- 

 streams becomes greater every year, gerous floods, and the regular rise of 

 Without the protection of the forests, the tides was utilized in irrigating the 

 and under the old policy of permitting cultivated areas. Today many of these 

 the public timber to pass unrestricted streams rise twenty feet in a night and, 

 into the hands of private owners, the coming down with tremendous force 

 limit of agricultural development in from the deforested slopes, are no 

 many western states had practically longer restrained by the dikes, but 

 been reached ; in fact, the denudation sweep over the fields and destroy them, 

 of the forest cover in several sections The dream of the future to make a 

 had been so complete that agriculture populous empire out of the great 

 in the valleys below became a failure American desert could never become 

 and wide areas returned to the desert, a reality without the enactment of na- 

 The greatest asset of three-fifths of tional forestry and national irrigation 

 the United States is the water in the 1 &WS - Under the policy of our ener- 

 streams and underground. Upon the g etic young Forester, Mr. Pinchot, we 

 proper diversion and scientific utiliza- are going to cut our forests and still 

 tion and application of this water nave them. There is to be no more of 

 depends the future of a region of im- this ruthless and wanton wasting of 

 measurable resources and productive- the timber resources and the attending 

 ness. decrease of the precious water supply. 



Private capital has wrested ten mil- It is not strange, therefore, that we 

 lion acres (or another state of Massa- of the Reclamation Service feel a deep 

 chusetts) from what was once worth- and kindly interest in the growth of 

 less desert. Two million people now the Forest Service. In the extension 

 dwell in prosperity and content in a or activity of that service in the West 

 region only a short time ago the most will come an enlargement of the work 

 forbidding and desolate on our conti- of national irrigation, 

 nent. Cities populous and prosperous We have all been very much im- 

 have risen in the desert and have at- pressed with the personnel of the For- 

 tained commercial and mercantile est Service. It has been my pleasure 

 greatness. Every available stream is in travelling over the West, and while 

 now a potent factor for good. Modern i n Washington, to meet a great many 

 methods and machinery have trans- members of the service, and I confess 

 formed the broad prairies of Louisiana to a feeling of surprise that Mr. Pin- 

 and southeast Texas into productive c hot has been able, in so short a time, 

 rice fields, and irrigation in a few to collect about him such a corps of 

 years has already fulfilled Secretary clean, vigorous, intelligent, and ambi- 

 Wilson's prediction that from an im- tious young men. As in the Reclama- 

 porter this country would become an tion Service, the esprit de corps is ex- 

 exporter of this important cereal. ceptional. There is a loyalty and de- 



Neither forestry nor irrigation are votion to chief, and love of the work, 



local questions. Their application is which is remarked on every hand by 



hy no means confined to the arid re- other government employees. Such 



gions. The denudation of forest cover sentiments predicate future success, 



in the South Atlantic states has already and at the same time are subtle com- 



been followed with dire consequences pliments to the men who are respon. 



to the irrigated rice plantations. The sible for the two organizations. 



