Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/52

28 in all countries, the preservation of which is absolutely necessary, because they perform an office which nothing else can perform. Whatever differences of opinion there may be as to the influence of the forest on climate in other respects, it is universally conceded that the forest is in an important sense the regulator of the flow of waters. It is a well-known story. Springs and watercourses which flow with steadiness while the forest stands, are, when the forest has disappeared, dried up or at least largely reduced in volume one part of the year, to be transformed into raging and destructive torrents during another part. In the shape in which it would be a blessing, the water fails. It appears in the shape of a curse. Of paramount necessity, therefore, is the preservation of the forest which covers the headwaters of the great rivers and their affluents, especially in the mountain regions with steep and rocky slopes, where the forest once destroyed can never be restored. Once strip the precipitous mountainside, and the rain and melting snow will soon wash down the scanty soil; the naked rock will appear on the surface, and the growth of a protecting vegetation will be impossible forever. The mountain torrents, swelled by rain and melted snow that no longer find any earth to soak, will then periodically rush down with undiminished volume, inundating the valleys below, and in many cases covering them with gravel and loose rock swept down from the steep slopes, gradually rendering them unfit for agriculture and sometimes even for the habitation of men. I have had occasion to observe such results in more than one instance.

The preservation of mountain forests of this kind is therefore of supreme importance, and where they are still in public possession they should be set apart as permanent reservations, either by the several States or by the General Government—or when they are in private hands, they