The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1884-05-17
Forests and Floods.

The following is n synopsis of an adj
dress recently delivered by George May
Powell, Chairman of the American In
stitute Forest Committee before a meet
ing of the Institute in New York City:
Forests and floods is not the least i'm
portant branch of this great question.
Years ago we gave earnest warning
that the flood horrors of the Ohio Val
ley and lower Mississippi might be ex-
pected. We now as earnestly assure
our National and State Legislatures that
we have only begun to deal with less
than ahalf-grown giant. These floods
will grow more and more terrible in The
valleys already devastated, and they
will show their frightful forms in other
valleys East and South, and on the Pa
cic slope, as well as in the Mississip-
pi basin. Congressional appropriations
for Mississippi levees and generous re-
sponses of the great cities and the whole
country to appeals for help to sufferers
from these floods have in the aggre-
gate far outreached the amounts that
would have been needed twenty-five
years ago as prevention, better than
cure" The damage from floods, (ris-
ing largely in Pennsylvania and Nir-
ainial to Ohio and Indiana in 1882 was
about twelve million dollars. In the
same States in 1888 thirty million dol
! lars.
! The present movement of the New
! York Chamber of Commerce to pre-
serve New York State forests is the first
tangible movement in America to carry
out the suggestions made to the whole
country by this committee ten years ago.
The care of forests, especially at stream
heads, is of vital Importance to all sea
ports and all cities located on naviga,
bic rivers. Another mighty enemy is
even now treading close upon the heels
of the Flood Fiend; the "Silt'' is max
ing channels unnavigable and choking
harbors. The interests of agriculture
and manufactures suffer with those of
commerce, as the whole body of man
suffers when any part of it is in pain.
Through decreasing. Northern Africa,
once the granary Ofthe Roman Empire,
has been turned into hundreds of
thousands of square miles o. dreary
desert. | have personally trayersed
wide stretches of this region where
there were undoubted evidences of an
cient cities, of palaces where gardens
and cool fountains were well nigh num-
berless. Now it is not uncommon for
the thermometer to stand there at one
hundred and twenty-eight degrees in
the shade for eighteen consecutive days.
| A drought in Georgia in 1881, from May
to November, was only one of the steps
of the same enemy, here, before our
, eyes, in march TO conquer a fair por-
ton of our country. Here, however,
the march. is more rapid and vigorous
than anciently.
: I'VE have cut more trees in two hun
} bred years than Southern Europe did
, in two thousand years. United States
, Government reports show that even
, now great portions of the Mississippi
, basin once profitable for agriculture
= will pay only in exceptional years, OF
t could the factory villages of the North
dead through water-power being killed
| by reckless tree-cutting, be gathered
l together it would form Metropolis
well nigh as sadly vast as that city OF
. the dead that stretches over twenty-five
! miles along the desert border of the
Nile" We must act in this matter Of
A do worse.
IN L IL I.,- I.