FOREST PERPETUATION AND 

 WATER SUPPLIES 



I X an article in the Manufacturers' 



* Record for January _\ on Forest 

 Perpetuation in its Relation to South- 

 ern Water 1 '< >\\ ers. Mr. John H. Fin- 

 ney, associate menilier of the American 

 Institute of Electrical Engineers, say- : 

 "A prominent Southern engineer. 

 Mr. \V. S. Lee, estimates that defores- 

 tation already done has cut down '.he 

 capacity of our streams not less than 

 40 per cent. This is entirely clue to 

 the longer and more damaging flooi. 

 periods, which have necessitated ex- 

 cessive costs for dams sufficienth 

 heavy to withstand them, besides giv- 

 ing longer drought periods, decreasing 

 enormously at such times the minimui 1 , 

 flow of the river, on which without 

 artificial reservoir capacity, the power 

 development must be based 



"When one o>n-ider- 'he -p'.eiui'd 

 contribution to the industrial South 

 that has been made by it- power plant - 

 and the economic value which tli 

 mean to our mills and manufacturing 

 interests, which value - more im- 



portant and far-reaching each year, as 

 coal becomes scarcer and dearer, 

 can get some idea of the importa;. 

 of forests to these industries, and, 

 through them, to the entire South. 



" Apart from the menace to our 

 water powers, there e.\i-t- through 

 the same causes, a very real danger 

 to the water supply of our cities and 

 towns, from the standpoint of b"th 

 quantity and qualitv ; our -tream- are 

 not naturally silt-bearing, but their 

 condition and appearance now. con- 

 trasted with their condition a -lion ten 



r. -T? 





Dam filled with silt, in the Tonto Basin, Arizona Tonto Na- 

 tional Forest will prevent such occurrences in future 



S.-i- forest Service IVi>artnifiit in tins 



