171 



It is, perhaps, not fully realized how easily we may do an injury to a country which 

 the most costly and painstaking labours can scarcely overcome. In passing up the valley 

 as the railway from the city of Turin leads up to the Mount Cenis Tunnel, the country, 

 at first a perfect garden of fertility, is seen to be encumbered with the debris which have 

 been brought down the stream from the mountain sides, in many places covering the 

 alluvial soil with a worthless deposit of gravel and sand. In some places the owners, by 

 watherinf this material into great piles that cover half the surface, have managed to plant 

 the remainder ; but it is almost a forlorn hope, and at best but a costly and imperfect 

 attempt to recover a part of what would otherwise be wholly lost. 



In this instance the injury has been largely caused by the throwing of loose materials 

 into the stream from the roadway along the bank, and from the numerous small tunnels 

 throuo'h which the railway passes ; but it is also partly due, and in a multitude of cases 

 elsewhere it is wholly due, to the clearing oft" of the woodlands upon these mountain slopes,, 

 and the inconsiderate pasturage of the herbage by which the surface has been exposed to 

 dano-erous erosions, and slides of the loose materials into the channel of the stream. 



"We have here a common and familiar instance of the irreparable injury that is being 

 done everywhere in the clearing off" of forests upon steep declivities, and of the damages 

 which one person may do to the property of another without actually entering upon his 

 premises or exposing himself to a charge of trespass within the common meaning of the 



law. 



Without further considering the duty of the private citizen beyond that of .planting 

 and protecting trees upon his own land wherever the opportunity off"ers, let us turn to 

 consider what our Government should do to protect the interests of their citizens in the 

 matter of forest planting and conservation. " But before doing this we might stop for a 

 moment to notice wl^at they have neglected to do for the protection of this great 

 interest. 



In the beginning, we find in the States, while still British colonies, an occasional ni- 

 dication of a policy which does credit to the men of that day, in reference to the 

 maintenance of forest supplies, and it would have been well had the thought left some- 

 thing more than its record. 



In laying down a system of regulations for the guidance of his settlers, William 

 Penn prescribed that a fifth part of the whole area of his province should be reserved in 

 woodlands — a percentage very nearly the same as that demanded by the best approved 

 authorities of the present day. Had this precept been observed, Pennsylvania would ere- 

 this have been checked in the destruction of some of the finest and fairest forests in 

 regions where the fruits of early years can no longer be cultivated by reason of bleak ex- 

 posures and late spring frosts that were unknown when woodlands were more common 

 than now. 



In Plymouth Colony, half a century earlier, and eleven years after the first landing 

 of the pilgrims, we find stringent regulations against the setting of forest tires, under 

 penalty of damages for the injury that might be done, and "if any person fire ye woods 

 yt hath noe just cavse so to do, hee shall forfeite to ye countries vse or be whipt." 



But perhaps the most interesting traces of the conservative policy of the early period 

 of colonization may be found in the measures proposed in the then Fr nch colony of 

 Canada. During the reign of Louis XIV. the grants of land that wer-" )eing made in 

 Canada were coupled with the condition that pine timber fit for masts vessels should 

 be reserved from clearing in certain cases, the property therein beir retained by the 

 Crown. 



It would be an interesting study for a Canadian archfeologist to trace up the history 

 of these reservations, with a view of ascertaining how extensively they were made, and 

 how far they were observed. 



But in the United States the general government has almost altogether lost its op- 

 portunity in the disposal of its national domain. It would have been possible to insert a 

 clause in the patent for every section that it conveyed that a certain portion, if already 

 timbered, should be preserved in woodland, or if a prairie, that a part should be planted 

 within a time and in a manner that would not have been burdensome, and that these 

 conditions should follow the title in all future transfers. 



