The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-10-01
WRITESOF FORESTRY
CLIFFORD PINCHOT TO COTTON
 MANUFACTURERs.
Government Expert Shows How Pres eTvAt1on or Forests Win Save Country's Water
 Power.

Washington. Sept. so.-tspecial.)-- The following letter written by eff. ford Pinchot. Chief of the United States Forest Service. has been made public here. It is addressed to 0. J. IT.
 Woodbury, Secretary of the National Association Of Cotton Manufacturers:
 My Dear Mir. Woodbury:--Your courteous invitation on behalf of the National Cotton Manufacturers Asso-
 ciation leads me. since I cannot be ment. as you request. I do so all the more gladly because of the foresight ed and public spirited attitude which your association has constantly taken in forest matters.
 .We are entering the age of cleo tricity in manufacture which means the age of cheap water power. Our available water power Is now 30ooo. 900 horse power. equal to the total horse power now developed by all means We can probably increase It more than ten fold; perhaps fifteen or twenty fold mo one can say. But in any event the prospect to the manufacturer is most inviting. Yet 1t is easy to over- look the fact that water power Is a liability. and that In proportion as auxiliary power is needed the power cost Is increased.
 Tn different parts of the country. and conspicuously in the Appalachian region. the need of auxiliary power has already made itself sharply felt and the cost of power has already been raised. where water power ought sure- ly to be sufficient to do the work alone. Floods and excessive low water in abrupt alienation have begun to render the powers of our streams un- reliable and in consequence are begin- nina to fnflict upon the manufacturer losses and wastes which are not ne. eessary and which might easily have been prevented
 One power company fin North Car. olfna. which supplies about 3S, 900 horse power to twenty-six towns. seventy eight cotton mills and various other small enterprises using motors in manufacture. has been forced to build at a cost of s2.000. 900, a steam plant capable of developing 0,o00 horse pow. CT. In order to supply it's customers during four or five months of low water. As result. the company will be compelled to raise it's rates. and the manufacturer will suffer.
 'Ona mill now supplied by this com pany formerly had water power of it's own enough to do its work. Then it was compelled to buy power. because the water Is no longer dependable. When asked the reason for the condi- tions described a representative of the power company, at a hearing before the Committee of Agriculture of the House of Representatives in January last said: There is no question but the cause of tins variation of flow s@ is the denudfng of the hills or the mountain sides of their forests.'
 South Carolina has about si03. .000,- 600 invested in cotton manufacturing plants. and at the same hearing tes- timony was given that of this invest ment $lS,000,000 was directly endan- gered every day and every hour by the menace of floods.
 New England is going through tne same sort of experience. The repre- sentative of one of the largest manu- featuring companies in New England. a New Hampshire company, told the House committee that they had lost in two years between s4oo.o00 and $600.000 from flood damage to manu- featuring property. He said also that 1t was absolutely necessary for hfs company to have a steam plant also and that this plant was put in to guard against the fluctuations of the Merri- mac River.
 The situation as regards the cost which would be added to the manu- 1
 
 becomes necessary. and emitting all | of direct destruction of | property, is well described in the tes- | timony of MT. A. M. Schoen, who yep- l resented the American Institute of | Electrical Engineers at the committee | nearing just mentioned. Mir. Schoen | said that to replace with steam the | power now developed in the Southern | Appalachians by water, in cotton man. ufacture alone, would mean an rn- crease of the cost of power of from | s16, 260.000 to $4S. .780,000 per annum, But the members of your associa- ton, familiar as they are with ques- tions involving water power, are fully aware Of the losses and wastes which | are felt as the reliability of the power giving streams is progressively i'm paired. l have not even touched upon the Tact. which you all know so well, mat stream flow when has been de- priVed or it's natural custodian-the ,orest--can be regulated, if at all, only oy the most costly system of reser- soirs. am simply drawing your at- iention to the principal causes of ir- regularity in stream flow. the strip ping of the mountains. In them water bower has its source. If they are for ested. water power is made or kept he cheap power which 1t still largely s and permanently should be.
 There will always be freshets tn ere will always be times of low water 'esults of natural forces over which We cannot hope to exert absolute con- .rol. They can be greatly minimized. md In general rendered but never en- irely prevented There will doubtless always be times of lower and higher water. But the calamities We are all % familiar with are wholly unneces- ary. We produce them ourselves al- most before realizing 1t, and some- imes without hope of correcting our mistake, by III directed forest clearing n regions naturally endowed with he great natural resource of abundant water power. like the region upon which cotton manufacturing depends.
 Water power Is peculiarly wide eaching in tis beneficient effects. By egulating the streams for power we egulate them also for navigation. and lold them back from working havoc O the richest lands of the farm. In he region in which your manufactur- ng interests lie the conservation of he streams is particularly important or this reason. since it means the velfare not of one industry alone, nor , ven of all manufacturing industries ut of the whole community in all it's