WHAT FORESTRY IS AND WHAT IT DOES 189 



are inevitable. Rain which falls on bare slopes is not caught 

 by the crowns of trees nor held by the forest floor. It does 

 not sink into the ground as readily as in the forest. The result 

 is that a great deal of water reaches the streams in a short 

 time and thus hastens floods. At other periods the streams 

 are low because the water which would have fed them for 

 months has run off in a few days. The farms are the first 



FIG. 129. Planting a Forest with Seedling Trees on the Nebraska 

 National Forest. The man on the right is placing the tree in a 

 slit just made with the spade. The man on the left is shoveling 

 the dry sand from the surface before making the slit for the tree. 



to suffer from the drouths that follow and, during the period 

 of floods, whole cities are often inundated. Fig. 128 

 shows such a scene. The history of Forestry is full of 

 horrible incidents of the loss of life and property from 

 floods which are directly traceable to the destruction of 

 the local forests and, on the other hand, there are many 

 cases on record where flood conditions have been entirely 



