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INDIANA UNIVERSITY STUDIES 



of sycamore trees reaching down several feet, helping to hold the 

 bank together. Also small trees and shrubs along the bank will 

 tend to check the current, causing sediment to be deposited, and 

 thus building up a natural levee and at the same time protecting 

 the banks from being eroded. Figure 15 shows this process of 

 building natural levees. 



We have seen that the soil from the outside of the meander 

 is carried down stream, while the sand and gravel is carried across 

 the stream to the inside low bank by the cross currents, where it 

 is made into high bars, as seen in Figure 29. In this instance as 

 much as forty acres have been carried from the outside and deposited 

 in the form of a desolate waste, on the other side of the river, in 

 the short time of ten years. It takes many years to reclaim this 

 desolate waste, and after it is reclaimed it belongs to the man who 

 owned land on the other side of the river, the original owner con- 

 tinues to pay taxes on it while the other man farms it. The old 

 saying, 'What is one man's loss is another's gain,' is somewhat ap- 

 plicable here. 



The thing that needs to be emphasized at this point is that 

 bank cutting takes place every time that there is a channel full 

 of water, and that the cutting power of the current is as efficient 

 then as when the stream has assumed flood conditions. This 

 phase of the flood situation can be controlled to a great extent, 

 and the most serious cases greatly retarded, if not entirely stopped. 



Effect of Trees on Deposits. Two and one-half miles north 

 of Martinsville on the west half of section 19 on the land belonging 

 to Mr. W. E. Hendricks, is a row of trees extending east from the 

 river as seen in Chart No. 2. Mr. K. I. Nutter owns the land east 

 of the row of trees, which formerly extended as far east as the in- 

 terurban line, but were removed by him. After a glance at the 

 chart the result of the removal is evident. About 90 acres south 

 of the row of trees was covered with silt from one to nine inches in 

 depth, while east of the trees the current was unobstructed and as 

 a result took two to four inches of the top soil from Mr. Nutter's 

 land. 



EflFect of Grass-Sod on Erosion. Three miles southwest of 

 Spencer on the land of Mr. John M. Dunn, the current left the river 

 and made a short cut across a long meander. Where the current 

 left the river there was a plot of grass some ten acres in extent. 

 The ground covered with grass was not washed or denuded in the 

 least, while the ground below this was robbed of three or four inches 



