Floods are not only immensely destructive of property, causing a loss of $100,000,000 along the Mississippi River alone in a single year, but they carry to the sea water that might be used for irrigation and for industry. Reservoirs, such as are built for irrigating projects, regulate the flow of water in streams and prevent floods. In New England and New York reservoirs have been built for this very purpose, and probably 10 per cent of the flood waters that originate in these states is saved in this way and turned to industrial uses. Similar conservation of flood waters occurs in Minnesota, but it is estimated that for the country as a whole not more than one per cent of the flood waters is saved. [Footnote: "Conservation of Water Resources," Water Supply Paper 234, U.S. Geological Survey, 1919.] There are areas in which the reservoir system is impracticable, as in the lower Mississippi Valley. Here all that can be done is to protect the adjacent land by means of levees while controlling the floods farther up the valley.
FUEL RESOURCES
Larger use of water power would conserve another valuable resource—coal. Of this fuel we have vast resources—"in West Virginia alone more than Great Britain and Germany combined." But the supply is not inexhaustible and we are mining it and using it in an extravagant manner. The loss here is not merely of heat and power and light, but of many valuable products of coal, including dyes, ammonia, vaseline, and many others.
DESTRUCTION BY FLOODS
Floods are increasing in the United States. This is due chiefly to the destruction of our forests by wasteful lumbering and by fire. In forested areas the ground absorbs the rainfall more easily, while in areas barren of trees and other vegetation it runs off the surface. The destruction of the forests, therefore, involves not only the loss of the timber, but also the loss caused by the floods, including the washing away of the soil.
THE FOREST RESERVES
In 1891 Congress authorized the President to establish "forest reserves," the first to be created being the "Yellowstone Park Timberland Reserve." From time to time new reserves were established, and in 1907 the name was changed to the National Forests. In 1917, more than 176 million acres were included within the National Forest boundaries, 21 million acres of which, however, belonged to private owners. They are administered by the Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture, at the head of which is the Chief Forester. They are grouped in seven districts with a district forester in charge of each. Over each of the 150 forests in the seven districts there is a forest supervisor; and each forest is further subdivided into ranger districts under district rangers who not only look after timber sales and the use of the forests generally, but also "help build roads, trails, bridges, telephone lines, and other permanent improvements."
A ranger must naturally be sound in body, for he is called upon to work for long periods in all kinds of weather. He must also know how to pack supplies and find food for himself and his horse in a country where it is often scarce. Besides a written test, prospective rangers are examined in compass surveying, timber work, and the handling of horses. [Footnote: "Government Forest Work," Forest Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture, p. 15.]
There are also employed in the Forests great numbers of logging engineers, lumbermen, scalers, planting assistants, guards, and others. In the great war, the Forest Service raised two regiments of men who went to France to assist in the various kinds of forestry work necessitated by the war.