A LESSON FROM FRANCE 



By CAPT. RALPH H. FAULKNER, 20th ENGINEERS 



AT THIS day when the subject of reforestation is 

 receiving some attention but getting only a very 

 small part of the support, both public and govern- 

 mental, that it should, we have returning to us 20,000 

 men who have spent from six to eighteen months in 

 France. These men, whether consciously or not, have 

 had borne in upon them the vast importance of a definite 

 and vigorously applied forest policy. 



When the loth and 20th Engineers left this country it 

 is doubtful whether many of them had any idea of 

 the forest wealth of France. I know it was the opinion 

 of the writer that the duty of the regiments would be 

 to cut the timber from public parks and roadways. In 

 fact, I really visualized the entrance of American lumber- 

 jacks into the very backyards of the French inhabitants 

 for the purpose of securing timber. My experience was 

 limited mostly to the southwestern part of France, and 

 as our train passed southward from Bordeaux I felt 

 that whoever had given me the idea that France was 

 denuded of timber had most evidently not referred to 

 that part of the country. 



More than one hundred years ago that territory on 

 the Bay of Biscay bounded by the Rivers Gironde at 

 Bordeaux and the Adour at Biarritz, was one vast desert 



of sand, unceasingly driven inland by the western winds 

 and mounting into dune after dune. This moving mass 

 of sands, which had gone on for more than a century, 

 submerged the crops and villages. The sand dunes thus 

 irresistibly mounted up at a rate said to be about forty 

 meters per year on a length of over 300 kilometers, and 

 an average breadth of six or seven kilometers. More 

 than 250,000 fertile acres were already covered with 

 sand b)' 1790, and the inhabitants, quite powerless, wit- 

 nessed the frightful progress of this devastating plague. 



The first people to conceive the idea of combating the 

 advance of the sands were two brothers, Desbiey, who 

 lived at St. Julien-en-born in the Department of Landes. 

 These two men, upon their private initiatives, set about 

 opposing obstacles in the way of wattle-work and the 

 planting of Gorse and Scotch-broom. At this time no 

 one had conceived the idea of planting maritime pine, 

 so that these two brothers stood out as pioneers in a 

 fundamental plan of forestry. All of their efforts, how- 

 ever, proved unavailing for the sands mounted more 

 rapidly than the growth of the Gorse. 



About this time public opinion brought such pressure 

 to bear upon the government of Louis XVI that an 

 engineer was appointed to find some means of stopping 



^iip^fi 



SCENE IN A MARITIME PINE FOREST, SOUTHWESTERN FRANCE. BROAD GAUGE SPUR PARALLELED BY LOADING DOCKS ON 

 WHICH ARE NARROW GAUGE TRACKS TO TRANSPORT TIES AND OTHER PRODUCTS FROM THE MILL TO THE FRENCH RAILWAY 

 CARS IN THE CENTER 



n55 



