!( >KKST CONSERVATK >.\ 



lation of hunuis and leaf-mold re-i-t the 

 compacting effect of tin: raindrops, and 

 hence the soil is kept loose, allowing the 

 water to readily percolate. This covering of 

 loose litter, twigs, etc., absorb- and holds 

 back the precipitation, preventing its d 

 pcaring rapidly hy surface drainage, goes 

 largely into the ground, and as a subsoil or 

 underground drainage, rea[)pears in the lorm 

 of springs, which being gradually fed by per- 

 colation from ahi.ve, themselves feed rivulets 

 or streams of perennial character. The snows 

 of winter melt more gradually in for 

 covered areas, giving more time for the 

 water resulting therefrom to soak into the 

 ground and pass off through the springs. 

 The streams fed from such sources have a 

 continuous supply to be used for irrigation 

 or such other purposes as man may require. 

 On the other hand, when the forest lands 

 have been denuded, the rainfall passes rap- 

 idly away, and its resulting effect is not long 

 felt or seen excepting by the filling of the 

 channels of the stream by slit, -and, and 

 gravel washed from above, and the result of 

 the waters having spread river the adjacent 

 low land-, destroying crops, improvements, 

 live stock and sometimes even the lives of 

 the inhabitants. It is not unusual in some 

 sections for the fertile valley lands to be 

 destroyed by gravel, stones, and debris car- 

 ried and deposited by the waters. 



Water power exerted througn electrical en- 

 ergy, and in operation in so many industries, 

 is impossible without constant and uniform 

 water supply, and this cannot be had except 

 along streams whose head waters have an 

 adequate protection of forest covering; 

 otherwise, the erosion of the soil soon nils 

 the reservoirs, and waters running unob- 

 structed on the surface converge in great 

 torrent-, carrying logs and debris of all kind-. 

 surging irresistibly through the river vallev-, 

 taking with it dams, gates, power plants, and 

 destroying what it cannot carry away. 



Originally the rivers and even the rather 

 small water courses of our country were to a 

 ter or less extent navigable. Their chan- 

 nels were deep, their water- mostly clear and 

 free from sediment and silt. At the pre-ent 

 time, owing to the deforestation of the land- 

 ;g their hanks, and especially of their 

 head waters, the breaking up of the sod and 

 the loo-emng of the soil consequent upon set- 

 tlement and cultivation of crops, these chan- 

 nels, formerly deep, have been in some in- 

 stances entirely tilled, and everywhere ren- 

 dered more shallow, until water transporta- 

 tion ha- d and river navigation ha- he- 

 16 almost obsolete on rivers which were 

 once teeming w.th commerce. 



Our < lo\ eminent is at great annual ex- 

 pense in the construction of levees, dike-. 

 jetties, and other devices to prevent the 

 structive overflows, and in dredging and 

 deepening the channels in order tli 

 cient depth of water may be obtained and 

 preserved to encourage tile re establishment 

 and preservation of our waterway navigation. 



so that means of tran-portat.oii. e,,mpet.- 

 with and supplemental to that furni-hed bv 

 our railroads may be had; Mntial ; 



portion of the money and . : 



led, if used in the pr 



forests, would materially better conditions in 

 this regard. 



The western half of the I'nited S 

 tains enough fertile land, now barren and un- 

 profitable, only because of insufficient mois- 

 ture, to -upport under adequate irrigation a 

 population of probably fifty million people; 

 further than this, as it h. truly said. 



such population in the \Vcst would support a 

 like additional population in the manufactur- 

 ing districts of the East, and the two would 

 support another large population engaged in 

 the transportation and distribution of the 

 commodities of commerce between them. 



The possibility of such irrigation depends 

 largely on the preservation of the forest cover 

 of the mountains, which catches and holds 

 the melting snows, and thus forms the great 

 storage reservoirs of nature. 



\Ve have been for many years, and are 

 now, using all our resources of diplomacy, 

 and even almost threatening at times to rein- 

 force it, if necessary, by our naval and mili- 

 tary strength, to maintain an "open door" in 

 the Far East for the benefit of our com- 

 merce, while at the same time we have only 

 dimly realized the possibility- of building up 

 an empire in our midst, whose yearly require- 

 ments of the commodities of comm 

 would equal the requirements of an equal 

 number inhabitants of the Far : r a 



generation, and the annual purchasing power 

 of whose productive activities would amount 

 to more than all the goods we could hope to 

 sell through the "open door" in possjhly more 

 than a quarter of a century. 



\Ve have it upon the authority of the Holy 

 Writ, that a thousand years before Christ 

 the eastern shore of the Mediterranean was 

 the seat of large cities having an extcn-ive 

 maritime comn The mountain region 



bordering ea-t and west, extending for many 

 miles inland, was covered with a dense for- 

 .oinpri-mg the cedar of Lebanon, the tir 



and the sandal wood, covering an area of three 



thousand five hundred ' The in- 



habitant- of S:don were ' 1 in 



cutting, hewing, and shipping timbers from 

 the fore-ts of Lebanon, and the seat of Sidoii 



t lumber market, and its citi. 

 -killed a\ men. 



The cities of Tyre and Sidon were largely 

 constructed of wood; their ships built of 

 .r. the masts of fir. and oar- of oak. Solo- 

 mon procured all of the timber- used in the 

 truction of the Temple, a- well as in 

 other buildings, from the ' of Lebanon 



bv a contract therefor with Hiram, Kin, 

 Tyre, in whose dominion they lay, QQ he 

 supplied eighty thousand laboi isl in 



nig and hewing the trees. The timber 

 was loaded :nto -hip- and conveyed to Joppa, 

 thence by land to J ; -alem. gion 



about Jerusalem was fertile, and Solomon 



