DROWNING THE TORRENT IN VEGETATION. 73 



artificial meadows. 2. He made careful estimates of the cost of re- 

 foresting the one hundred and fifty thousand hectares in the depart- 

 ment which needed it, and recommended that, besides remitting taxes 

 for ten years on reforested land, and distributing seeds gratis, the 

 state should pay three quarters and the department one quarter of 

 the cost. He showed that the increased revenue from taxes, after 

 the ten years of exemption, would repay the advance in eighty-six 

 years. 



Almost every one ridiculed the proposal ; it was compared to the 

 " Arabian Nights " ; and, as a reward for making it, he was deposed. 

 But, at the same time the state was exj^ending one hundred and twenty 

 million francs each year for roads and bridges, and a large part of this 

 outlay — vastly more than reforesting cost when at last wiser counsels 

 prevailed — was made necessary by torrents which every year grew 

 worse, but which reforesting cured. 



Dugied's ideas were, in the main, those finally adopted, except that 

 he left out the essential idea of compulsion. An entire torrent-basin 

 must be taken in hand at the same time, and one uniform process be 

 carried on over the whole of it. As Surell said, success should not be 

 imperiled by the first stupid or stubborn peasant who would not do 

 his part. The state must not only bear the expense, but also assume 

 the direction. Expropriation or confiscation must be resorted to, as 

 is done in taking land for roads, etc. 



In May, 1856, when heavy rains fell all over France, floods in the 

 valleys of the Loire and the Rhone did incalculable damage. This so 

 re-enforced the appeals which had been made by specialists like Fabre, 

 Dugied, and Surell, that the Corps Legislatif consented to make a trial 

 of the new way of fighting floods. The old way — erecting barriers, 

 etc. — had been altogether defensive ; the new was almost wholly of- 

 fensive. The method, as an expert expressed it, was " to ch'ow7i the 

 torrent in vegetation'''' — that is, to turf the higher and more level 

 pastures, and then to retard the flow of water down the steeper slopes 

 below the pastures by trees, bushes, fallen leaves, and mosses, so that 

 much of it would have time to soak into the ground and reach the 

 spring-reservoirs, and another large portion be absorbed by the fallen 

 leaves, etc., and held as by a sponge, or be taken up by the growing 

 vegetation ; and to hold back the remainder by millions of small obsta- 

 cles so that it would reach the stream no faster than a full chan- 

 nel could carry it away ; and, finally, that, flowing at no point over 

 bare soil, it might reach the stream-bed as limpid as when it started 

 down-hill. 



Difficulties. — The hindrances to the success of the work were 

 both moral and physical, but the moral were the greater. They were : 



1. The unwillingness of an ignorant peasantry to try any new thing ; 



2. Reluctance on the part of the Corps Legislatif and of local authori- 

 ties to interfere with private rights as much as the success of the work 



