CHAPTER XIV. 93 



most. They think forestry a good thing, but that the immediate in- 

 juries of undue denudation would only fall on them secondarily through 

 the lessened power of purchase of irrigators with less water and there- 

 fore with less crops. The truth is that no part of the community stands 

 in more immediate and greater danger from forest destruction than 

 does Los Angeles city. 



1st. — In the loss of its permanent water supply by the flood de- 

 livery of the rainfall suddenly from the burned and bare mountains, 

 every year getting worse, and 



2nd. — Because it has a torrent bed running right through the city, 

 which has already, by the deposit of detritus, elevated itself above the 

 general level. 



Some city people have never seen the Los Angeles river in its tor- 

 rent form. If they do, they will at once realize what a menace it Is tc 

 extensive sections. 



All our streams gradually diminish in flow of water, as soon as 

 they leave the mountains, or even before. Most of them do not really 

 get clear of the mountains in their normal flow. It is only in flood 

 or torrent time that they go far out toward the sea in a continuous sur- 

 face flow. In the minor streams, you will often find, after rains, a 

 roaring and unfordable stream close to the mountains and hardly any- 

 thing a few miles out in the valley. 



Torrents are only found where mountainous water-sheds are in part 

 or wholly without adequate covering of forests. Forests with us al- 

 ways include chaparral. After a torrent has been created, the great 

 question is how to deal with it, and how to diminish its destructive ac- 

 tion. All of the methods that have been used in dealing with torrent 

 action are also in use in dealing with floods in general. 



First is extinction of the torrent. This can only be completely 

 accomplished by reforestation of the denuded water-shed. Reforesta- 

 tion has occurred by the operations of nature. It has also been done by 

 man. Nearly all of this artificial treatment Is in France. The work of 

 replanting denuded mountain water-sheds and the fixation of drifting 

 sand dunes by forestation in the south of France is of the greatest in- 

 terest and value to forest students in the West and especially in the 

 Southwest. An expedition has been proposed by a number of 

 Americans to make an early tour through the German forests. It 

 would be worth every forest student's while to make the trip through 

 intelligently and efficiently managed European forests. For us, how- 

 ever, the trip should be through the south of France and Algiers. 



