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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
June, 1911 
VACATION NUMBER 
Ae July issue of AMERICAN HoMEs AND GARDENS will 
be devoted to vacation topics. 
This number will contain beautifully illustrated 
special articles on sports and pastimes, which will include 
houseboating, camping, outing with a portable equipment, 
fishing, hunting, and everything pertaining to vacation life. 
Fach of the articles has been prepared by an expert and 
will be presented in so detailed a form as to be readily 
understood in solving the problems which so often confront 
the vacation-seeker who desires to spend a profitable and 
pleasant holiday. 
In addition to these subjects the issue will contain articles 
of practical value in household affairs and timely garden 
work about the home. 
The table of contents published on page x, in the cur- 
rent issue, will give a synopsis of the contents for the July 
number of AMERICAN Homes AND GARDENS. 
SHALL NIAGARA FALLS BE PRESERVED 
Y ‘HE power developing companies at Niagara Falls 
are not satisfied with being allowed to run their 
works at full speed upon water for which they do 
not pay one cent, but they still seek to have the amount di- 
verted from the Falls on the American side increased 28 
per cent. This would give them some 50,000 horse-power 
additional, worth to them nearly a million dollars a year. 
According to the army engineers and the Lake Survey au- 
thorities, damage has already been done, which will be 
greatly extended if diversion is increased. The American 
Civic Association, which has led in the fight to save Niagara 
for the people, insists that the power people have now 
enough and they should not be allowed to encroach farther 
upon the Falls. The able, ingenious and plausible gentle- 
men who are interested in power developments at Niagara 
Falls, and whose;“investments | have"{been completely re- 
spected in the fair and equitable legislation promoted by the 
American Civic Association, continually assert that the 
casual visitor can see no difference in the Falls. Each of 
them denies the least intention of himself injuring the Falls, 
but he is silent as to the effect of the combined abstractions 
from the great cataract, except when he can find an “‘old- 
- est inhabitant” who is sure that he can notice no difference. 
Abraham Lincoln once said in notes for a lecture on Ni- 
agara Falls, that the value of the great cataract was not 
so much ‘in its grandeur as in its power to excite reflection 
and emotion in the people who saw it. He might, had he 
known how travel would be stimulated, have gone further 
and added some statement as to its value as a cash-produc- 
ing asset to the people of the United States. Those who 
depend on figures rather than on fact when discussing the 
development of electric power at Niagara Falls often refer 
to the percentage of diversion included in the total twenty 
limitations, and insist that a diversion of 25 per cent. will 
reduce only to that amount the glory of the great cataract, 
but will not materially change its form to the eye. But the 
wild glory of Niagara Falls results from the uneven char- 
acter of the bed of the river, set with great rocks, which 
gives the wonderful rapids, and from the jagged edge of 
the stupendous cliff over which the mighty flood from four 
great lakes plunges one hundred and sixty feet into a 
rugged cauldron. It is known that at normal flow the 
covering of water on some rocks of the rapids, and on por- 
tions of the crest line of the cataract, is very thin. Taking 
a half-inch from the twenty-foot green heart of the Horse- 
shoe Fall would not be noticed, but the same general half- 
inch takes all that covers some rocks, and half and more 
in other places, so that it can be readily seen that if this 
were reduced a greater damage would be inflicted upon 
what is one of America’s greatest natural beauties. The 
power companies on the American side are developing 
about 190,000 horse-power from the water abstracted from 
the Falls, which, according to the findings of the engineers, 
has seriously injured the great cataract. Not one cent of 
revenue to the people rises from the production of this 
power, but the companies derive a gross revenue of $3,800,- 
000. It is now proposed, by drying up the Falls 28 per 
cent. more on the American side, to add another million 
to this gross revenue. If this gross revenue could be, as 
it never can be, distributed to the people of the United 
States, who own the Falls, it would amount to about four 
cents apiece each year. No one has yet been known to say 
he would rather have the four cents than the opportunity 
to see the Falls. 
Obviously, the value of Niagara Falls to the people of 
the United States, aside from Lincoln’s reason for their 
existence, and in simple dollars and cents, is far greater 
as a spectacle to attract travel than as a source of water 
power for a few stockholders and for the promotion of 
restricted industry. 
Past experience has demonstrated that the American 
people want the Falls preserved for their beauty for all of 
the people. To make sure of their continued preservation 
further definite action is now demanded, and it is to be 
hoped that those in authority who have charge of this mat- 
ter wiil see that earnest endeavors are made for their con- 
tinued preservation. 
THE SMOKE NUISANCE 
HE American Civic Association has published its sec- 
ond edition of the Smoke Bulletin. 
This new edition is timely because of the very 
general and growing interest in the subject and the active 
efforts being put forth by many cities for the abatement of 
the smoke nuisance. 
Coming from the chief organized antagonist of the 
abuses to which the face of the city is subjected, the re- 
port should be of use to all intending to exercise activity 
in attaining good civic ends. 
