466 DISCUSSION: FORESTS, RESERVOIRS, AND STREAM FLOW 
Mr. Pinchot. Avenue has a greater value for another purpose; and the soil on 
which Colonel Chittenden recommends that trees shall be grown has 
a vastly greater value for agriculture than it could ever have for 
forestry. 
The suggestion that trees be planted for the supply of the next 
thirty or forty years, instead of protecting and guarding the present 
forests, is the revamping of an idea which was prevalent in the 
earlier stages of forest agitation in this country. Those who have 
given attention to the matter have come to see that forest plantations 
can never take the place of protection of the natural forest and 
of its natural reproduction. 
When Colonel Chittenden objects to the use of the term wasted 
in speaking of timber lands which pass into the hands of private 
lumber companies, he fails to remember this vitally important fact, 
which is another of the fundamental conceptions of forestry, namely, 
that, when the Government cuts timber from the National Forests, it 
does so with the distinct and avowed purpose that the land shall go 
on producing timber. When a great lumber company cuts timber, it 
proceeds, almost without exception, with the idea that the land shall 
cease to produce timber. In other words, if the great lumber com- 
panies are not wasting timber, because the timber comes into the 
market, they are wasting forests, which is the essential thing. Less 
than 1% of the privately owned forests in the United States are 
being conservatively handled. 
A word in summing up: If the speaker’s points are well taken and 
have been made plain, Colonel Chittenden’s fundamental conception 
as to the forest floor and its influence is mistaken. His idea that 
records in the United States do not show an increase in the frequency 
of floods and low waters is mistaken. His idea that the critical point 
to be considered is flood heights, and not flood frequencies, is mis- 
taken. And his conception of forestry, of the functions and manage- 
ment of the forest, beyond its relations to water supply, is so funda- 
mentally mistaken that the speaker might discuss it at far greater 
length without exhausting the mistakes. 
Mr. Chitten- =H. M. Currrenpen, M. Am. Soc. C. E. (by letter).__Owing to the 
den. wide range which this discussion has taken, it will manifestly be 
impossible to review it in detail without making the closing argument 
much longer than the original paper. The most that the writer will 
attempt will be to go over his seven fundamental forestry propositions, 
noting how each has fared, and then consider a few of the more 
important features of the several contributions. 
Proposition 1. 
“The bed of humus and débris that develops under forest cover 
retains precipitation during the summer season, or moderately dry 
