46 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



January 



1875 and 1900 the traffic on canals in- 

 creased 112 per cent; it amounts now 

 to over thirty million tons, being so 

 active in certain inland towns that 

 Paris, for example, has a larger navi- 

 gation than any of our seaports, Mar- 

 seilles included. The "nautae Pari- 

 siaci" of Gallo-Roman times may look 

 with satisfaction upon their descend- 

 ants. In the regions producing in 

 greater quantities the sort of goods fit 

 for canal transportation (coal, grain, 

 stone, mineral products, etc.), that is, 

 the northeast of France, existing 

 canals, although constantly improved 

 and increased in number, are still in- 

 adequate, for traffic increases even 

 more. You would often find in those 

 parts the water covered as far as the 

 eye can see with flat-bottomed boats 

 of three hundred tons (the normal di- 

 mension) loaded with goods to the 

 brim. The sums spent have been large, 

 to be sure, but we consider them well 

 spent, and the investment a good 

 investment. 



That investment is valuable because 

 of what it yields, of what it helps, and 

 also of what it prevents. The best 

 thing it prevents is the railroads rais- 

 ing their tariffs too high. As soon as 

 the railroad companies raise their tar- 

 iff, quantities of goods find that they 

 can very well afford to travel at a 

 slower pace and take the water route. 

 Our canals act, in a way, as a kind of 

 rate bill, a self-regulating one. 



Another great question with which 

 we have had to cope is that of rivers. 

 We have a number in France ; but 

 mostly shallow and irregular. We 

 have done much to improve their 

 course, and have yet much to do ; 

 plans are being laid for ample im- 

 piovements. Here a consideration 

 comes in of paramount interest for 

 you, as for every country — the ques- 

 tion of forests. 



It is an absolute principle : no for- 

 ests, no waterways. Without forests 

 regulating the distribution of waters, 

 rainfalls are at once hurried to the 

 sen ; hurried sometimes, alas ! across 

 country. After having devastated the 



neighboring fields, the rivers find 

 themselves again with little water and 

 much sand; and with such rivers, how 

 will you fill your canals in all seasons ? 

 Since our forests suffered damages 

 which we are now bent upon repair- 

 ing at considerable pains and cost, a 

 river like the Loire has been entirely 

 transformed; it used to be the best of 

 our waterways, and it is now the river 

 whose inundations are most destruc- 

 tive. I do not know what damage 

 those of the present year have done, 

 but in 1856 the loss amounted to forty- 

 six million francs. The question is as 

 plain as can be: do you want to have 

 navigable rivers, or do you prefer to 

 have torrents that will destroy your 

 crops and never bear a boat? If you 

 prefer the first, then mind your forests. 

 We can tell you, for we know. 



In the time of Louis XIV that same 

 river Loire was the principal means of 

 communication between the center and 

 the west, and even between Paris and 

 Brittany. To go to Brittany the fa- 

 mous Marquise de Sevigne went to 

 Orleans, put her coach on a flat-bot- 

 tomed boat, navigated twelve or thir- 

 teen hours a day, had her food cook- 

 ed on a little stove in the boat, she 

 herself remaining in the coach; she 

 never tired of admiring the landscape, 

 listening to the birds, laughing at un- 

 toward incidents, writing to her 

 daughter, and reading a work she had 

 taken with her to enliven the journey; 

 not a naughty novel, nor one of those 

 heroical romances she was fond of, 

 but a history of the events in Portugal, 

 in two large octavo volumes. 



Such pleasant journeys are no long- 

 er possible on that same river ; but the 

 former state of things is going to be 

 re-established and we hope even im- 

 proved upon. Special studies have 

 been made and, for the Loire in par- 

 ticular, the researches of M. Bureau 

 have shown beyond doubt what parts 

 of the country should be reforested to 

 make that river again navigable to the 

 same extent as before. Those parts are 

 being reforested, and we shall have 

 once more a navigable Loire from 



