R-U,S.1T. 



11/6/31 



there has been considerahle change. Those streams now are more often dry 

 in summer and when the rains come they run thick with muddy water. 



You see, Nature, left to herself, provides a carpet of vegetation 

 to check and filter the water and to let it soak in. But when we come along 

 ajid cleax the land, and bare the soil, and plsoit ro'.v crops on it, much of 

 the water which natural cover conditions held back, goes to swell the floods. 

 Not only more v/ater but water filled with the best top-soil from our farms 

 rushes down the streams to add the extra inches to the flood which may meaji 

 disaster. 



And remember even our forests lose much of their water holding power 

 when the brush and leaf litter on the floor of the woods is destroyed. 

 Overgrazing and fires often add water to our floods. 



Some people claim that back in the days of the early pioneers there 

 were floods equal to any we have had in recent years. But Mr. Bennett points 

 out that those stories of floods are vague and unreliable and sharply con- 

 tradicted by the experimental evidence now being obtained, although recognizing, 

 of course, that there have always been floods. 



The water-holding capacity of forests and grass-lands has been 

 demonstrated. As Mr. Bennett indicates, the terracing of fields, and the 

 growing of trees, grasses and shrubs on idle lands and areas too steep for 

 cultivation, and upon soils that are highly susceptible to washing, will do 

 much to reduce floods by decreasing the run-off ajid washoff from many land 

 areas. 



Protection of existing forests and woodlands from overgrazing and 

 dama<ge by fire, will also help. Ground-fires burning through the woods and 

 seemingly doing little damage to the trees burn the leaf litter which 

 pla^/^s such a big part in checking run off of rainwater. 



Those Autumn leaves, you see, have a big job ahead of them this 

 winter ajid next spring. 



41 lit 4141 « 



ANITOUNCS I E I jT t Every other Friday'-, Station presents these results of 



visits with Uncle Sam's Naturalists in the United States Department of 

 Agriculture. 



-3- 



