Mr. Chitten- 
den. 
474 DISCUSSION: FORESTS, RESERVOIRS, AND STREAM FLOW 
tion, let the practical aspect of the matter be examined. Will engi- 
neers of the country admit that, in the problems of high and low water 
on our navigable rivers, the extremes are of minor importance, and 
the average, smoothed-out, floods are the controlling factor? Let us 
suppose that Mr. Leighton is presenting his views to a committee of 
land holders in the Lower Mississippi Valley, who want his advice 
as to the best method of protecting their lands from overflow. Mr. 
Leighton compares his two smoothed-out periods and shows that if 
the forestry conditions of the first period can be restored there will 
be a certain lowering of average flood heights and a diminution of 
their frequency. If his arguments have any meaning, it must be that 
if local flood relief measures which will meet these average conditions 
be supplemented by forest development which will make the conditions 
permanent, the problem can be satisfactorily solved. 
The plan appears simple, but now some one in the committee who 
has looked up the records inquires if the very highest floods that the 
river has ever seen did not occur before the forests were cut off at all, 
and if those high floods were not on the whole as frequent then as 
they have been in recent years. Mr. Leighton admits that such is the 
case, but explains, with ill-concealed contempt, that such occurrences 
are quite out of the regular order of things, and can be considered only 
as “sports,” “freaks” of Nature, which “it is as illogical to consider 
* * * as representative of general tendencies, as it would be to 
accept the physiological and anatomical freaks in a museum as repre- 
sentative of the human race.” Silenced for a moment by the stunning 
effect of this reply, the questioner presently ventures to ask what is 
going to happen to the levees and the property behind them when these 
freaks do come. This is a poser to Mr. Leighton, and while he is hunt- 
ing up a satisfactory reply another member of the committee asks 
how long it will take to reforest the water-shed so as to produce the 
results that are promised. He is informed that it can be scarcely less 
than from 50 to 75 years. What will happen in the meantime? Again 
Mr. Leighton hunts for an answer. What will the reforestation cost? 
Unknown, but certainly many millions of dollars. Is it a sure thing 
that agricultural land enough can be given up to provide the necessary 
forests? In other words, is the proposed reforestation a possibility? 
That is a point not yet determined, but very doubtful. 
By this time those who have listened to the conversation have made 
up their minds, and they suggest to Mr. Leighton that if he will take 
the money necessary for reforestation, add it to the funds for local 
works, get busy and strengthen the levees so that they will keep out 
the “sports,” they will not ask anything of him on account of the 
“smoothed-out” floods. If the great floods are taken care of, they will 
not worry much about the smaller ones. 
In like manner we may imagine a similar conference with the navi- 
gation interests of the Ohio and Mississippi. Is there any doubt that, 
