The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1908-10-03
FLOOD AND DR0UTH.

Last spring the Ohio river and its numerous
tributaries in Indiana, Ohio and kentucky were
con the rampage" four or five times in as many
weeks. Great damage to property of all kinds
done by the high waters, and it seemed that one
flood had no sooner subsidized than another came
along just little more disastrous than the one
that preceded it. Cities were inundated, and farms
and lands in the river bottoms were rendered unfit
for planting until very late in the year. At that
time we called attention to the constantly re-
curing floods and pointed out that the woods that
used to cover practically the whole area of the
states named have been cut down. We also called
attention to China's difficulties with high waters
Chinas forests were cut down centuries ago, and
there have been floods of disastrous proportions
almost yearly in that country ever since.
Following the season of high water in the Mis-
sissippi valley and especially in that portion
drained by the Ohio river there has been period of
eight or nine weeks without rain, which was only
broken last Monday by copious downpours. The
crops that were planted late dried up in the ground
without any return for the labor of putting them
in. Potatoes that were planted in some portions of
Ohio and Indiana did not return as much as the
seed that was put into the ground. The winter
wheat crop was harvested before the drouth set in
but all the other crops which require the summer
season in which to mature were more or less fail
ures. Tobacco in many parts where the weed is de-
pended upon for the principal crop was almost
failure. In the Miami valley, reports show that
some crops were absolute failures Corn is poor
throughout that section. And dust on the roads
is gust little thicker than it was ever known be-
fore. The Miami river is reported lower than it
ever was before and the Ohio the lowest for thir-
teen years.
Added to all these difficulties, the Ohio river
has gone to such stage of low water that coal
barges at Pittsburg now loaded with something
than twenty millions of bushels of coal in
tended for the southwest, cannot be moved. 1t is
said that the mines in the Pittsburg field will be
forced to close down for lack of shipping facilities
Miners thus are thrown out of employment right at
the beginning of the fall season. and there promises
to be coal shortage in those portions of the coun-
try which depend on the Pittsburg mines for their
coal and the waterways for their transportation
facilities.
Forest fires in nearly every district which still
mas forests have done incalculable damage In the
northwest towns have been destroyed, and the work
of many people during the greater portion of their
llVes has been swept away by the onslaught OF the
flames. in the eastern section of Ohio, and in
West Virginia wells and small streams have dried
up, and the larger rivers are little more than rivu
lets. 1t is reported that lumber plants glass fac
tories and iron and steel mills will be forced to
close down; indeed some already have done so.
Thousands of men thus thrown out of employ
ment and the lack of foodstuffs the shortage of
farm products and the consequent high prices which
inevitably prevail have made the outlook in that
drouthstricken section one not pleasant to contem-
plate.
1t may be that the destruction Of the forests
and wooded sections over this vast territory has
not been the for the changes which make half
a dozen floods in the early spring and few
months later bring a drouth of more than two
months, but that such is the case is the opinion of
men who have made study of the question. And
the belief is founded on more than theory. For in
other countries older than this the experience has
been the same as 1t is true that to refor-
est any considerable portion Of The thicky settled