THE FISHERMAN AND REFORESTATION. 
BY FILIBERT ROTH. 
That the forest cover influences the distribution of water on 
the earth’s surface in place and time, that the forest helps to store 
up water, and tends to make our streams more ample, more clean 
and more regular, preventing flood and drought, all this is mat- 
ter of common belief. That this belief is held by at least a part 
of the members of this society, | take for granted, otherwise the 
matter of reforestation could have no place in your discussions. 
It is to be regretted that this relation of forest and waterflow 
should still be a debated question anywhere, and that we should 
lack reliable and accurate data to substantiate the commonly ac- 
cepted belief. This is the more unfortunate, since we, right 
here in Michigan, have had perhaps a better opportunity to trace, 
step by step, the changes brought about by the removal of the 
forest, than is found in almost any other part of the world. And 
even today these changes are going on; springs are drying up 
along our Huron River banks, little streams are changing to dry 
runs; wet fields are gradually drying up; thousands of acres of 
swamps are changed to meadows, miles of corduroy road. are 
thrown out and changed to dirt road. Even in our north coun- 
ties, where no clearing, no settlement has helped matters along, 
we find old cedar stubs on what is now dry sandy pinery land, 
clearly showing that when the forest was intact the moisture 
loving Arbor Vitae had no trouble in growing out of the regular 
cedar swamp. But these facts were not recorded, they did not 
lend themselves to easy and yet accurate observation like tem- 
perature and rainfall and the consequence is that we have to go 
and see and infer. 
In considering the action of the forest in regulating the dis- 
tribution of water we may assume as proven by the experiments 
of Wollny and others that: 
The forest holds the soil, it prevents the erosion as no other 
cover does. The great significance of this one action is difficult 
to overrate. 
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