130 Canadian Forestry Journal, July, 1915 



Ontario Forests aivd Water Powers 



Unless Watersheds are guarded from destruction, the power vakie 



of scores of streams will disappear* 



It has long been taken for granted 

 that the water powers and forests of 

 Ontario hold the key to future pros- 

 perity. Until a few years ago neither 

 resource was recognized as of such 

 importance that governmental policies 

 need give them much recognition or 

 that special departments should be 

 created to study their problems and 

 direct their uses in the public interest. 

 The coming of the hydro-electric com- 

 mission and the campaign of educa- 

 tion which followed probably did 

 more towards the awakening of popu^ 

 lar interest in water powers than 

 coidd have been accomplished in half 

 a century by commonplace methods. 

 The forest, unfortunately, has had no 

 such powerful champion to turn its 

 generalities into matters of particular 

 peisonal concern. Tt has never been a 

 iwlitical issue and has never had the 

 assistance of a great popularizing 

 force such as the water powers en- 

 joyed through the advocacy of Sir 

 Adam Beck and his disciples. Were 

 there to be created such a body as a 

 Forest Commission, preaching a gos- 

 pel of "the forests for the people," 

 and given the backing of a strong 

 jiolitical party, who may doubt that 

 trees would take their place with 

 horsepower as subjects of debate 

 across the domestic table and the 

 counter of the country store. 



"vVliether or not the forests follow 

 the water powers into the political 

 arena, the same popular interest that 

 took hold of the vision of cheap power 

 must as firmly take hold of the de- 

 mand for forest protection. Tlie two 

 are absolutely inseparable. Niagara 

 does not meet the need of more than 

 a strip of Greater Ontario, and other 



water powers must be the solution of 

 future industrial and municipal de- 

 maiids for electricity. 



AU Communities Suffer. 



In all parts of Ontario one may see 

 hundreds of instances of distress and 

 loss brought upon communities by 

 the complete drying out of water 

 courses or the wild fluctuations be- 

 tween spring floods and midsummer 

 drought. ]\Iills falling to pieces from 

 disuse, or revamped for steam power, 

 their wooden dams high and dry in 

 the gulleys, are to be met in any 

 cross-country journey. In the larger 

 centres, such as Brantford, Paris and 

 Gait, what citizen does not grimly ap- 

 preciate the problems of a water 

 l^ower made uncontrollable by forest 

 destruction, giving too generously in 

 the spring months, stinting the water 

 wheels in August? What citizen of 

 London, Ont., has not wished that the 

 annual rampages of the denuded 

 Tliames could be modified to save the 

 taxpayer's pocket? What mill owner 

 in Georgetown would not give a heavy 

 sum to secure an even 12 months' 

 pressure? 



Speaking generally, water powers 

 are valuable in proportion to the 

 amount of water available at the 

 periods of low water, which usually 

 occur in August and September and 

 in February and early March. One 

 of the most careful students of this 

 question, the late Cecil B. Smith, C.E., 

 asserted that of the chief features af- 

 fecting the uniformity and total 

 amount of flow, only three were with- 

 in the control of man : condition of 

 soil, whether cultivated, pasture, or 

 \\oodland ; storage, natural or arti- 

 ficial ; control of run-off from storage. 



