710 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



of the stream diverts the water, which 

 opens up gullies through the dry land ; 

 the main stream is made shallower and 

 wider and often overflows into the 

 fields; islands and silt bars rise in the 

 stream ; and deltas are built up in char- 

 acteristic form at the entrance to the 

 lake. 



The erosion processes which work 

 themselves out in this model, the wear- 

 ing down of the hill, the silting up of 

 the stream bed, the gradual shifting of 

 the course of the stream, the formation 

 of deltas and sand bars in the lake, and 

 the gradual opening up of watercourses 

 through them are all typical of the proc- 

 esses constantly going on in nature and 

 show strikingly the close relationship 

 between forests and surface formation. 

 It is the same process of erosion on a 

 larger scale which, after the destruction 

 of our forests, causes the removal of 

 the top soil from our slopes, cuts them 

 up into gullies, and deposits sand and 



gravel upon the fertile alluvial soil of 

 the bottom lands, in storage reservoirs, 

 or in the channels of streams, where it 

 impedes navigation and causes over- 

 flow. 



\Yhile the model is not intended pri- 

 marily to show more than the erosion 

 processes, it can be used to show also 

 that a forest-covered slope acts as a res- 

 ervoir in impounding the water and al- 

 lowing it to seep slowly into the 

 streams, and, on the other hand, that 

 water runs off the surface of a bare 

 slope as soon as it falls, resulting in 

 floods when the precipitation is heavy 

 and in droughts during a dry season. 

 If the sprinkler is stopped and all the 

 water taken out of both of the streams 

 and the lakes, the lake on the forested 

 side will, within a few hours, receive 

 a considerable amount of water as seep- 

 age from the wooded hillside, while the 

 other lake will remain practically 

 empty. 



HIGHER PRICES WILL CONSERVE FORESTS 



BY N. P. WHEELER 



HIGHER prices for standing tim- 

 ber and its products will tend to 

 conserve the forests. When tim- 

 ber is cheap it is wasted ; for, when cut, 

 it is not worked up, nearly as close as 

 when more valuable. I am confident 

 there has been more timber burned up 

 and destroyed in the State of Pennsyl- 

 vania than has been manufactured. I 

 have seen 8 or 10 acres of the finest 

 white and red oak girdled just to kill it, 

 so that it could be burned up to clear the 

 land. In fact, that was the common 

 way of clearing the land, the only way 

 of marketing in those days was by man- 

 ufacturing by water power and seeping 

 down the tributaries of the Allegheny 

 and the Allegheny and Ohio to Cincin- 

 nati and Louisville. Only the best of 

 the white pine was taken. The stumps 

 cut breast high and fifteen feet of the 

 bulk of every tree left in the woods and 

 all the tops above the limbs. Not to ex- 

 ceed 50% of the selected tree was taken, 



the rest being left to rot. No hardwoods 

 could be floated and were therefore not 

 considered valuable. I have seen white 

 pine girdled to kill it to clear the land. 

 Once when our rafts were lying by for 

 high water in the Ohio a larger mass of 

 fence rails brought down by the high 

 water collected behind the rafts. To 

 my surprise I found these fence rails 

 were the finest of black walnut. When 

 the tanneries first came up into Western 

 Pennsylvania hemlock was cut just for 

 the bark, and thousands of acres after 

 the bark was taken off were left to rot 

 or burn. Now that hemlock has become 

 valuable, it is all gathered up that will 

 make lumber. In many places the limbs, 

 tops and branches are gathered up for 

 pulpwood and not enough left to make a 

 bad fire, thereby protecting and con- 

 serving the forest. When blackened 

 over by fire it cannot be used for pulp- 

 wood. These are some of the reasons 

 why I am confident higher prices will 

 tend to conserve the forests. 



