20 DIMINISHED FLOW OF ROCK RIVER. 



of water supply from which the community now suffers, and which 

 can be secured without loss of productive power to the owners of 

 agricultural land, but, on the contrary, with decided advantage to them. 



REMEDIES FOR PRESENT CONDITIONS. 



For the loss in volume of the Rock River due to diminished rainfall 

 the present report has no remedy to suggest. The whole subject of 

 climatic change is too little understood to permit of any positive 

 assertions in this particular case, either as to its causes or its perma- 

 nence. The important point practically, however, is not so much the 

 amount of total rainfall as the rate at which it flows off. The remedial 

 agencies needed are such as will help to keep the flow steady. 



Drainage is a matter which must be left to each owner to carry out 

 in whatever way will enable him to make the most out of his land, 

 irrespective of the fact that the more fields and swamps are drained 

 the faster will be the run-off and the greater the fluctuations in stream 

 flow. The swamps of the region serve the purpose of very wasteful 

 natural storage reservoirs, which sacrifice a great deal of land to store 

 a small amount of water. Agricultural progress can not be prevented, 

 and should be welcomed; and until the water becomes valuable enough 

 to the interests dependent upon it to make it worth while for them to 

 pay the necessary price in order to store it artificially, the disadvantage 

 of uneven flow due to drainage must be accepted as an incidental draw- 

 back of improvements good in themselves. 



In the case of the forested area, however, the situation is somewhat 

 different. It is true that here again the controlling principle must be 

 the advantage of the individual owner. It is not proposed to turn 

 good farm land into woods, with the certain result of a net loss on the 

 crop. But there is much land naturally better adapted for woodland 

 than for agriculture. In many cases this now supports a sparse and 

 inferior growth of timber, or none at all. A little care on the part of 

 the owner would result in his having eventually a much more produc- 

 tive and valuable woodlot, and would at the same time help to equalize 

 the stream flow, and so would benefit the whole region. 



In most of the woodlots of southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois 

 the forest is in bad shape. The leaf mold has been washed or burned 

 away, or dried out by too much sunlight; the soil has become impover- 

 ished; the trees have had their vigor impaired by unfavorable condi- 

 tions, or have begun to succumb to the attacks of insects and disease; 

 undergrowth and reproduction have been destroyed; the ground has 

 been trampled hard by grazing animals; and the removal from time to 

 time of the best timber, leaving its place to be filled up by inferior 

 growth, has tended to a steady deterioration in the quality and make-up 

 of the forest. These effects are the result of long-continued use of the 



