Minnesota Waterways. 
Aitkin, Minn., April 29.-— Editor Forest and 
Stream: In your issue of March 30 you speak 
of a special waterways commission and say of 
the work it is expected to do : “The preven¬ 
tion of destructive floods is also aimed at, and 
it is conceded that this will be among the com¬ 
mission’s chief and first aims.” 
The extreme upper end of the Mississippi River 
offers a field so peculiarly adapted to the work of 
such a commission that I am impelled _ to ask 
space to once more call attention to the situation 
as T see it, being on the ground. 
The Government having already invested sev¬ 
eral million dollars here in the flood and naviga¬ 
tion business, the commission might reasonably 
be expected to glance in this direction. There 
has been some dispute here as tO' what the result 
of the operation of the Government reservoirs 
has been. Wherever there is a claim on the one 
side by the injured settler there is a counter claim 
on the other by the lumbermen, who, on their 
own evidence are in no way interested. The only 
clear evidence there is on the subject outside of 
individual sayihg so, which is sometimes honest 
and sometimes not, is found in the reports of the 
army engineers themselves who have had the 
work in charge from the beginning. From these 
reports it is readily seen that the tendency of 
the Government policy has been to increase the 
floods. In arguing the right of the Government 
to store water in the non-navigation periods, the 
engineers’ report says: 
“It is clearly the duty of the district officer, 
under the law, to economize water when not 
actually needed for navigation (log floating), so 
as to have the greatest possible supply when it 
is needed.” 
Again, in computing what the natural flow of 
the river would be at a given place if there were 
no storage, it says: 
“It will be interesting to note here the record 
of the only series of discharge observations taken 
before the dams were commenced.” Later on 
the report says: 
“This flow, it may be noted, was largely made 
up of storage water. The lakes fell enough dur¬ 
ing the winter to account for an average flow of 
500 cubic feet per second.” 
Thus the Government is, by the use of its dams, 
holding back this 500 cubic feet per second dur¬ 
ing all the six months of winter and raising the 
level of the lake beside. During these six months 
of winter, floods are impossible in this country. 
There is no record that anything having the 
slightest resemblance to a flood ever occurred in 
winter. The vast amount of water stored in the 
reservoirs in winter is for use in summer. Dur¬ 
ing the summer this country is peculiarly liable 
to flood by reason of the fact that for a greater 
part of the six months of winter the frost stores 
all precipitation and it must go out in the spring 
and summer. Meantime such water as could 
escape in winter through the great river is being 
stored in the reservoirs. If the Government has 
the right to reverse the order of nature as to 
the river it ought to assume control of the floods. 
Let the water run free; control the floods by use 
of the dams, closing the gates in flood periods 
only or improve the waterway to meet changed 
conditions. We are few and the floods that vex 
us are mere shower baths compared to the floods 
that devastate other parts of the country, yet 
they are persistent and being persistent have ren¬ 
dered futile the life efforts of a good many peo¬ 
ple, besides nearly depopulating about twenty-five 
miles of river country. In accordance with our 
small importance the cost of our relief would be 
correspondingly small; in fact, the reversal of 
the reservoir policy could be done without cost 
to the Government. We hope we are not too 
small to attract a passing glance from the great 
waterways commission of which you spoke. 
This is all I can see in the case as looked at 
from the statement in the engineers’ report. 
Looked at from what I see and hear it is some¬ 
what different. The reservoirs are not to assist 
navigation at all. They are simply a graft scheme 
by which the lumbering interests have got the 
Government to pay in large part the natural ex¬ 
pense of lumbering. The name of the United 
States Senator who was largely instrumental in 
getting the reservoirs established is the same as 
the name of the largest holder of cut-over lands 
around the headwaters of the Mississippi. It 
puzzles me how one man could get possession 
of so large an acreage. As far as I know the 
land was never sold by wholesale. 
I never fully realized what effect the cutting 
of timber might have on floods, either, until I 
wandered over those barren hills after deer for 
a time. The growth of a thousand years swept 
away in twenty. The lumbering once begun, the 
profit was so great that no time or attention could 
be spared to the litter, and fire destroyed what¬ 
ever living thing the ax spared. The present 
population of northern Minnesota, or a much 
larger one, might have been employed for all 
time cutting this timber and caring for the new 
growth, but they did not do business that way. 
The Government was paying the freight and the 
work was rushed. What they could not compass 
was destroyed by the aftermath of fire. The re¬ 
sult was a few millionaires and a wasted land. 
Whoever develops it now will do' it without the 
aid of valuable timber. It has all gone to non¬ 
residents, but some swamp growth protected by 
nature from the fire and a few large tracts pro¬ 
tected by the Indians until the greed of the white 
man and his Christian government finally dis¬ 
possessed them. The cutting off of the timber 
no doubt adds something to the floods, but the 
main cause is complete control of the great reser¬ 
voirs by the lumbering interests. 
Nor is the flooding the only damage done at 
the behest of the lumbering interests. The Gov¬ 
ernment keeps a snag-boat and crew at work on 
a hundred miles of river between the Brainard 
Dam and Pokagama Dam. This boat and crew 
do not pay so much attention to the snags in 
the channel of the river as it does to trees stand¬ 
ing along the cut banks or leaning over them. A 
steamboat passing along would not be obstructed 
by the leaning trees as it would keep in the 
channel, but logs floating down stream follow the 
outside of the bend or cut bank. A tree lodged 
upon the bank and extending slightly over ob¬ 
structs their passage. This cleaning up of the 
cut banks fastens the wash, the trees being cut 
ten feet back from the brink. One place under 
my notice shows the river bank has cut away more 
in the last three years than in the previous hun¬ 
dred, the wash in three years being thirty feet 
and the river only 250 feet wide, while trees 
growing closely on either bank show a growth 
of at least a hundred yards. Thus the land is not 
only flooded, but much of it washed into the stream. 
Another feature of this Government work is 
the dynamiting of the fish. For a month I have 
heard explosions each day, sometimes a dozen at 
least. After a shot I have seen the water literally 
freckled with dead fish. The destruction of fish 
in this way must have fully equalled all the State 
fish hatchery put into its waters for the same 
period. 
A dredge boat to cut the canal the Aitkin 
county people have been asking for would cost 
no more to maintain than this snag-boat costs, 
and it would cut the canal in one summer. In¬ 
deed the saving in fish would be worth the cost 
of the canal, for then the logs could go through 
the canal and there would be no excuse for dyna¬ 
miting the river. 
Another evil that follows in the wake of the 
rest is the land frauds by speculators. Along 
the river, in the flood zone, are some very rich, low 
lying lands that are extra fertile. In dry years 
the engineers in charge can regulate the flow ol 
water so that the lumbermen can carry on theii 
operations without causing a very damaging flood 
During such times the land is plowed and plantei 
in crops that is enough to answer the purpost. 
for which it is done. When the crop is at its 
best out go the land men and their advertise 
ments to drum up home seekers and they art 
easily caught, for timothy four or five feet tall 
corn at eighty bushels per acre, and oats at ont 
hundred is a great bait to a man who has saved 
a few hundred dollars in a rented farm. The 
buyer, of course, knows nothing of the trap the 
Government has set just above the bait and he 
plunks in his little all, dreaming of easier times 
and the next year he floats down with the flood 
and his land goes for the remaining payments: 
and is rebaited as the land agent gloatingly re¬ 
marks, “ready for another sucker.” Some 0 
these land agents were originally caught in the 
same trap and learned the game fair. After the 
rebuilding of the Winebegoshish Dam it tool 
four years to refill the great reservoir, and dur¬ 
ing that time there were no floods, but when they 
did get it full the harvest was ripe indeed. Many 
dropped their life work in the pool and some life 
itself. 
One of the vexing things locally about trying 1 
to remedy the situation is the effort of the town 
of Aitkin commercial club. The cut off canai 
has been regarded as the real remedy, but the 
town is secretly against it. Being on the extremej 
outside of the great bend the canal would leave; 
it miles away. The merchants profit largely from 
the river trade and fear losing it. The land 
agents do not want to give up easy money, and 
though the town is in the worst part of the 
flooded section they still do 1 not want the remedy 
applied. While pretending to be for it they work 
against it on the sly. They want to cut off a 
series of short bends, but still take the water 
the long way round. They claim the army en¬ 
gineers recommend this, but I do not believe any 
self-respecting engineer recommends any sucl 
thing, as it is arrant nonsense. If anything is 
to be done, cut the long canal and make the 
work perfect. There are two other ways the 
Government could settle the matter. One is tc 
abandon the reservoirs; the other to reverse the 
policy of management; that is run any water that 
may be in them off during the winter time and 
begin to fill during the spring and early summer 
freshets. This would distribute the flow during 
the year, preventing excessive floods and giving 
navigation and the power companies a benefit. 
It would make no extra cost to the Government 
and could be put in operation by an order from 
President Roosevelt. 
I hope the waterways commission will come 
this way. This situation is certainly in their line. 
We have nothing to' hope from the Minnesota 
delegation in Congress or Senate. The lumber 
barons own them to a man. One of them did 
start a move in our behalf a couple of years ago, 
but the trust’s organs of Minneapolis and St. 
Paul set up such a scream that he went into his 
hole with the celerity of a prairie dog at the 
crack of a rifle, and he has not done anything 
since. My choice is to go back to nature. I 
am tired of improvements on nature’s plans that' 
are only made at the behest of some grafter. 
The spring freshet is now at or past its highest 
point. The small, unobstructed streams are said 
to be higher than ever known in a state of nature, 
while the Mississippi lacks ten feet of hivh water 
mark. This portends danger, as the difference 
must be holding in the reservoirs, to come later 
when log driving operations begin. A moderate 
flood now would do little or no damage; a month 
from now it destroys whatever it touches. 
E. P. Jaques. 
