36 



lands. As a result the population and wealth of many of the hill counties 

 have been gradually and greatly diminishing. 



Many of the streams, flowing down steep beds in their short courses 

 from the divides to the Ohio, at one time furnished valuable water power. 

 They are now useless. Were it possible to control such streams as Four- 

 teen Mile, Indian Kentucky, Indian and Laughery creeks and many others 

 in Clark, Jefferson, Switzerland, Ohio, Dearborn, Ripley and other coun- 

 ties in southern Indiana, very valuable water power could be obtained. 

 Under the present condition of floods and drouths, however, they are 

 valueless as a source of power. Streams that thirty years ago furnished 

 abundant power for mills during ten months of the twelve now are even 

 without flowing water for almost half the time. 



The alternate floods and drouths have had a serious effect also upon 

 the animal life of these streams. The great volume of muddy and rap- 

 idly-flowing water sweeps thousands of the smaller fish from their proper 

 habitats into larger pools, where they become a prey to their own kind. 

 On the other hand, drying up of the pools of almost every small and of 

 very many of the larger streams causes the destruction of the young of 

 our most valuable game and food fishes as well as of minnows and of 

 crayfish upon which the more highly-prized fishes feed. In the flooded 

 streams following the unusual freshets of March and April of the present 

 year bass and other species of fish ascended the smaller streams almost 

 to their very sources for the purpose of spawning. The severe drouth of 

 the late summer and autumn months dried up the pools and caused the 

 death of such quantities of the young fish and other animal life that the 

 odor of their decaying bodies was very offensive to persons dwelling along 

 the streams near the pools. It would be quite within the truth to say that 

 several wagon loads of minnows and the young of our food fishes thus per- 

 ished this season in the tributaries of Big and Indian Kentucky creeks in 

 Jefferson County alone. Some of the young bass were removed to larger 

 pools, but thousands upon thousands were destroyed. It would seem al- 

 most useless to restock our streams with bass and other valuable food and 

 game fishes if the periodic floods and drouths are to continue and to grow 

 in magnitude and severity. 



The points already discussed represent but a part of the evils result- 

 ing from deforestation among the hills and valleys of our southern coun- 

 ties. We need not speak of the more manifest economic phases of the 

 subject, such as the failure of the timber and the fuel supply, and the 



