THE CLOSE RELATION BETWEEN FOR- 

 ESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



BY 



GUY ELLIOT MITCHELL 



Secretary, the National Irrigation Association 



nr* HE connection between a comprehensive system 

 of forestry and irrigation is a somewhat local 

 though vital one, directly affecting as it does but one- 

 half of the territory of the United States — the arid 

 region. Forestry itself, as affecting water supply, is 

 a broad national question, as well as a local one in each 

 state and drainage basin. The forest movement, there- 

 fore, has a country-wide interest, and whereas Cali- 

 fornia is alarmed over the destruction of its mountain 

 forests and the drying up of its streams which form 

 the life-blood of its communities, Pennsylvania and 

 New England are only to a less extent exercised over 

 the threatened danger to their water sources, necessary 

 for city and town supplies and for power development. 



In the Western half of the United States the destruc- 

 tion of forests has an intimate, immediate bearing 

 upon the capacity of the States to sustain population, 

 for population results from irrigation ; irrigation de- 

 pends upon water supply and the water supply is the 

 melting snows caught and held by the forests clothing 

 the great mountain chains of the Sierras and the 

 Rockies — nature's great storage reservoirs. 



Three things are necessary to insure a maximum 

 water supply for irrigation : 



First, prevent wholesale destruction of timbered 

 watersheds. 



