Great Floods Not Due to Deforestration

Washington, Nfay 7.-Orving to the numerous references to the effects of deforestation on great floods that have been made during the current discussion of the causes and remedies of such floods as now prevail in the lower Mississippi Valley, the National Lumber Manufacturers Association today pointed out some "popular misconceptions" as follows: a state of primeval forest the flood regu-

First, so far as deforestation has any important relatiorl to floods of the present magnitud'e, it is almost entirely confined to deforestation for agricultural purposes. The impossibility of evacuating the population of the eastern half of the United States and reforesting all the farms of the forest regions of the Mississippi River Valley is so obvious that flood remedy in that direction is ridiculous.

So far as the opelations of the forest inclustries in these regions is concerned, it may be stated as a general proposition that brush and second growth trees come in so rapidly that within two or three years the cut-over land is as absorbtive and retentive of rainfall as the original forest. It is true that in some instances timber cutting operations have been followed by such a series of fires that the return of vegetation has been virtually prevented. Bad local erosion and runoff conditions are thus created, but they are scarcely a drop in the bucket when considered with respect to such a disaster as the present one in the lower Mississippi Valley.

Shingle Paint Gets Fire Test

Before representatives of the school board and various citl' departments in addition to a number of shingle and lumber manufacturers. a sDectacular demonstration was staged Wednesclay at the plant of the Washington Lubricating Company, Seattle, with the purpose of demonstrating that ordinary shingles can be made more nearly fireproof than any other type of roofing.

Nine sections of different kinds of roofing were set upthree of composition shingles, five of new and old wooden shingles, both painted and bare, and two of new shingles covered with fire-retardent paint.

Then all were ignited simultaneously and a stop watch held on the time it took each section to burn. Two of the composition roofings were destroyed in eleven minutes and the other in trventy. But both of these shingl,e sections covered with fire-retardent paint were still rvhole when the test was concluded after thirty minutes, not even the top layers having burned through.

J. H. BAXTER & CO.

WHOLESALE LUMBER

Poler-Pilee-Creosoted Material

Central Building

TRinity 6332 lation capacity of forests is largely local and absolutely disapp'ears in periods of abnormal precipitation. The sponge effect of the forest floor has its saturation point, when that is reached additional rainfall runs off the forest cover just as quickly as off bare rock. That is why the great floods attained as high stages a hundred years ago as they do now. Manifestly, fundamental control of the extraordinary floods in the Mississippi Valley is something far beyond all possible reforestation, which has already been clearly indicated in a statement by Secretary Hoover.

The forest industries in no way seek to belittle the importance of a forest cover as a means of preventing or checking soil erosion, the rapid runoff of ordinary precipitation and local and regional drainage irregularities, such as alternations of too high or too low water, but they want to make it plain that there are limits to what can b'e done in the way of curing consequences of deforestation, principally because deforestation, especially in the valley of the Mississippi and its chief tributaries, is mainly for agricultural purposes, therefore, inevitably permanent.

Despite the popular conviction that there is an intimate connection between deforestation and the great floods that come now and again in the Mississippi Valley, the actual facts of the situation were classically developed twenty-five years ago by General Chittenden of the Army Engineer Corps. His conclusions have been generally.accepted by hydraulic engineers, foresters and meteorologists evef since.

HIPOLITO INVADES NORTHEASTERN TERRITORY_HERMAN ROSENBERG GOING EAST TO DIRECT EFFORTS

Herman Rosenberg, of The Hipolito Company, Los Angeles, famous makers of Sugar Pine screen doors that have taken every district they have invaded by conquest, is going to Detroit, Michigan, to be gone much of the time for the remainder of the year. Two years ago The Hipolito Company invaded the Te>ias territory, and there they have found much success. Now they are going still farther from home, and invading the Michigan territory. They rvili warehouse their doors there, and put on a selling campaign in that territory. Mr. Herman Rosenberg, Merchandising Manager and partner in the concern, is keenly interested in their new field work, and will look after it personally. He will be away from California most of the time for the remainder of this year.

Southern-HARDWOODS-,Southe.rn

Oak Flooring and Maple Flooring

1109 First National Bank Building

Telephone Douglar 9117