‘ _ We must have Every spring we read of the damage caused by floods in British Columbia, of lives lost, and property swept away, although there has been nothing approaching the magnitude of the present disaster for the past half-century. For the layman it is difficult to assign a specific reason for such catastro- Phies, but for the forest scientist floods represent the logical after- effects of forest devastation. We are reaping in flood calamities the bitter fruits of decades of for- est abuse. Those who want to master the waters in a country must first master the forests. Flood control is one of the 8reat internal problems confront- ing our province today. The solu- tion applied by older countries that have learned their lesson by bitter experience can and must be applied to our own flood con- ditions. _ The idea of forests as a protec- tion from floods is only about a hundred years old. It was born of Stern necessity. It is not possible to grasp the full significance of the relation of forests to erosion and stream flow Unless w2 understand certain fun- damental relations that exist be- tween forest covers and water Supply, The life-giving influence of Mountain forests on the water resources rests in the porous, loose, cavernous structure of the healthy forest soil. That in turn depends partly on the action of the roots of trees and herbaceous 8rowth, as well as on the life- functioning of innumerable micro- organisms and earthworms which are present in a healthy forest Soil. Such a forest soil absorbs rain water like a sponge/and conducts it to the deeper soil layers by Means of myriad detours through the root channels of innumerable Toots and rootlets, causing it to filter down until finally it is re- United in a subterranean brook Which flows along some imper- Meable stratum and finally reaches the light of day as 4 Spring. ' The crown-cover and the ground litter moderate the mechanical force of falling rain and thus Prevent it from compacting the S0il. They also serve to delay the melting of snow in the spring, and . Prevent deep freezing in winter, SO that in times of excess water Supply the forest soil is able to absorb far greater ‘quantities of water than the open ground. The forusts, therefore, consti- tute huge natural reservoirs upon Whose unimpaired functioning de Pends the welfare of the country. Their destruction oh mountain ie visits inexorable wrath on valleys below. Forests reduce and often en- tirely prevent the erosion of soil and thereby keep stream channels _ free to take care of stream run- Off. At the time of maximum high Water the deforested watershed * ie es By MAX PAULIK carries off considerably more water than the forested one. Flood crests increase. At the time of drouth or minimum water flow the stream bed in a deforested watershed carries comparatively little water or actually dries up, while ‘the stream of the wooded valley still yields considerable water. The forests equalize the flow of water through the wet and dry periods of the year, often without diminishing the total yearly dis- charge. e 4 N this country over the last twenty-five years floods have been getting more severe, more frequent and more destructive. The records show also that the height of the flood levees has been constantly raised. If more evidence is needed that floods are getting worse, let us take a look at the river deposits themselves. The recent sediments laid down by the Fraser are coarser and more diverse in tex- ture and color. They were laid down by waters more violent and | with greater carrying power than those which laid down the older materials underneath in the pre- agricultural period. Man’s activity has terribly has- tened and increased run-off and floods. \ : ‘ British Columbia is washing away. We are suffering from 2 kind of mass astigmatism in al- lowing the fertile crop-producing top soils to be Carried seaward right under our very eyes. Rugged individualism is leading us to ag- ricultural poverty, and we have A Scot sizes up the By GLADYS MITCHELL —LONDON Bic Ben boomed sonorously four times over the Houses of Par- liament. Its rumble echoed across the Thames and sank into every corner of London. It was teatime. And already in the central lobby of thé House of Commons a Ppo- lite buzzing had begun. J felt a touch on my shoulder, and wheeling around I found a stocky middle-aged man regard- ing me, his brown eyes twinkling pehind spectacles. It was Willie Gallacher, one of Britain’s two Communist MP’s. “you'rre the American girrl, arre ye no’?” the Scottish burr was so strong, there was muscle in it. . ‘ “we'll have a spot of tea to- gether, shail we?” He didn't wait for a reply. Instead he led me through the maze of wide, stone corridors toward the Members’ Tea Room. On my way through, 1 noticed that Gallacher, or as he is commonly addressed in session, “the right honorable gentleman from Fife,” was affectionately hailed from all sides, often by Tories and Laborites, who during Parliamentary sittings his bit- terest political opponents. When I commented that he used our forests with profligate extravagance. The result has been a large de- struction of our very capital in- vestment from which our nation- al income is derived. The rate at which our virgin vegetation cover has been stripped and converted into cut-over deserts probably has never before been equalled in the world’s history. About 95 percent of our original virgin forests are gone. With them has gone a large part of their enormous storage capacity for water. Is there any mystery in the fact that floods have increased in severity after the removal of millions of tons of water-absorb- ing leaf-mold? Or is there any mystery about the fact that fully one half of our total land area in B.C. represents watershed prob- Jems that are crying for urgent solution? 5 ; ; .- \ our virgin timber supply rapidly coming to an end, our only hope for a continuous yield of timber and security against increasing flood disasters = seemed to know everybody, Gal- lacher humorously replied, “Thir- teen years in this place is no’ a short time.” Pee Afterwards, sitting on an open balcony looking out across the Thames, we talked about the Mar- shall plan. : “You know,” Gallacher said, “in Fife, where I come from, there are about 50 villages, all mining and agricultural—no big towns. I go there and address meetings every alternate Sunday, anc I regularly discuss the Marshall plan with the miners, They are strongly opposed to any talk of war. “Many of them say multi-mil- lionaires of America will put up the dollars if Britain puts up the men. They strongly object to Bri- tish lives being sacrificed to fur- ther the interest of the big dollar boys of Wall Street. “They are also aware, as many others are fast becoming, that the American multi-millionaires are contemplating a war that will leave America as it was during the recent war—untouched by bombs or any other form of at- tack. But Britain will be acting as an aircraft carrier, at a rela- tively safe distance from Ame- rica itself.” es Gallacher showed me a tele- gram he had just received from ~ the Glen Craig Branch of the Min- lies in the growth of more timber. The growing stock on Interior for- est lands, instead of being further depleted, must be restored and re- habilitated to somewhere near their potential capacity to pro- duce. U.S. Forest Service experiments show that the upper three inches ef forest soils may absorb four- teen times as much water as ad- jacent agricultural soils. European countries accept com- plete government water-control programs which include land- management grazing regulations, forest protection, reforestation, establishing of protection forests to preserve soil, and the building of minor up-stream structures. With only two percent of our land surface good for agriculture and the rest adapted best for tim- ber growing, the control of ero- sion and floods on this type of lands is of the utmost importance. Most of our absolute forest land is on steep slopes which favor quick run-off, and is at the head- quarters of our larger rivers where floods are born. ers’ Union, supporting his fight against the Marshall Plan. The last words of the telegram were spirited—“With more power to your elbow,” it read. at such a war,” he continued, “as the American warmongels contemplate and actually advo- cate were to take place, the poPu- lation of Britain would be wiped out of existence.” - He crossed legs and puffed vig- orously on his charred black pipe. “You can see,” he concluded, “why the miners aren’t for the Marshall Plan.” But what about the economic benefits the plan’s sponsors are promising the people—sponsors like Bevin and Cripps? “The plan,” he asserted, “is cunningly camouflaged. It is de- scribed as the Eropean Recovery Program. “But it is a futile attempt at that. Th> monopoly capitalists of America are trying to supPly Sur- plus goods to shore up decrepit capitalism. But they have an ur- gent need for finding fields of in- vestment for their tremendous accumulation of capital. They must have markets for the ever- increasing productivity of their highly efficient industry. And these urgent needs are knocking these shores away as quickly as_ they are put in. Marshall olen flood contro r) By the establishment of genuine forestry practice in the whole catchment area of the Fraser River basin, and by the enact- ment of basic forestry laws, we have at least the chance of at- tacking the flood evil at the root. Foresters certainly do not claim that proper care and use of for- ests will always prevent all floods. Certain combinations of soil and weather conditions will produce a flood despite the beneficial ac- tion of forest cover. But flood history has shown the difference between the high-water mark of a flood that becomes a catastrophe and one that does little or no harm. It is by retaining the often harmful surplus that goes over the banks that the forest plays its greatest role. The great reservoir capacity of the forest soil and for- est floor has in most cases proved to {be the all-important safety factor in preventing flood disas-_ ters. : Several thousand years ago an old Chinese sage warned, “The — mightiest rivers are cradled in the needles of the pine trees.” That is still sound philosophy. “They will destroy any possibil- ity of a successful operation of the Marshall Plan. British econ- omy can only be_ established through trade treaties with coun- tries that can accept the basic principle of goods for goods.” ‘ I looked puzzled, so he gave as_ an example. “While America supplies Brit- ain with a _ disproportionate amount of goods we require, Am- ©