FOEESTS OF FEANCE. 307 



ally felt in France, and tlie subject has been amply debated in 

 special treatises, in scientific journals, and by the public press, as 

 well as in the legislative body of that country. Perhaps no one 

 point has been more prominent in the discussions than the influ- 

 ence of the forest in equalizing and regulating the flow of the 

 water of precipitation. Opinion is still somewhat divided on this 

 subject, but the value of the woods as a safeguard against the rav- 

 ages of torrents is universally acknowledged, and it is hardly dis- 

 puted that the rise of river-floods is, even if as great, at least less 

 sudden in streams having their sources in well-wooded territory. 



Upon the whole, the conservative action of the woods in re- 

 gard to torrents and to inundations has been generally recognized 

 by the pubhc of France as a matter of prime importance, and the 

 Government of the empire has made this principle the basis of a 

 special system of legislation for the protection of existing forests, 

 and for the formation of new. The clearing of woodland, and 

 the organization and functions of a police for its protection, are 

 regulated by a law bearing date June 18th, 1859, and provision 

 was made for promoting the restoration of private woods by a 

 statute adopted on the 2Sth of July, 1860. The former of these 

 laws. passed the legislative body by a vote of 246 against 4, the 

 latter with but a single negative voice. The influence of the 

 Government, in a country where the throne was so potent as in 

 France at that time, would account for a large majority, but when 

 it is considered that both laws, the former especially, interfere 

 very materially with the rights of private domain, the almost en- 

 tire unanimity with which they were adopted is proof of a very 

 general popular conviction, that the protection and extension of 

 the forests is a measure more likely than any other to arrest the 

 devastations of the torrents and check the violence, if not to pre- 

 vent the recurrence, of destructive river inundations. The law 

 of July 28th, 1860, appropriated 10,000,000 francs, to be expend- 

 ed, at the rate of 1,000,000 francs per year, in executing or aid- 

 ing the replanting of woods. It is computed that this appropri- 

 ation — which, considering the vast importance of the subject, 

 does not seem extravagant for a nation rich enough to be able to 

 expend annually six hundred times that sum in the maintenance 

 of its military establishments in times of peace — will secure the 

 creation of new forest to the extent of about 200,000 acres, oi 



