American Forest Congress 335 



when Congress was in session. The railroad track 

 had been submerged and torn to pieces in many places 

 by the flood, and the ice was banked up as high as the 

 second story windows of the farmhouses to the left 

 as we came down the river. 



It is only within the last two weeks that I read an 

 article in the New York papers to the effect that the 

 cities of that Allegheny region were without water, 

 the railroads were hauling water and the mines were 

 shut down because the rivers were dry. 



I ask, why is that? And I will answer the question 

 for you. It is because we have gone over those hills 

 and mountains with axe and fire and stripped the 

 hillside and the mountain tops of the whole Allegheny 

 region, and instead of having a natural forest cover, 

 which is the greatest reservoir known to nature or to 

 man, we have a surface which sheds water as fast as 

 the floor of this hall would shed if if you stood it at 

 an angle of 45 degrees. 



There is no other question of as much interest to the 

 commercial, manufacturing and transportation inter- 

 ests of the country, to say nothing of agriculture, as 

 that one question, forestry. 



It is not a western problem or an eastern problem — 

 it is a national problem. 



When I appeal to you for this broad consideration 

 of it, all that I ask is that you will project your minds 

 across the ocean to the shores of the Mediterranean, 

 to Palestine, to Persia, to the plains of Mesopotamia, 

 and answer me this question : 



Where is there a nation that has been desolated by 

 war that has not been restored to fertility when it 

 lived upon a land that was productive? 



Where has there been a nation destroyed by the 

 desert that has been restored or ever will be? 



