REMEDIES AGAIN^ST TOREENTS. 309 



Remedies agamst Torrents. 



The rural population, wliich in France is generally hostile to 

 all forest laws, soon acquiesced in the adoption of this system, and 

 its success has far surpassed all expectation. At the end of the 

 year 1868 about 190,000 acres had been planted with trees,* and 

 nearly 7,000 acres well turfed over in the Department of the 

 Hautes Alpes. Many hundred ravines, several of which were 

 the channels of formidable torrents, had been secured by bar- 

 riers, grading and planting, and accorduig to official reports 

 the aspect of the mountains in the Department, wherever these 

 methods were employed, had rapidly changed. The soil had 

 acquired such stabiHty that the violent rains of 1868, so destruc- 

 tive elsewhere, produced no damage in the districts which had 

 been subjected to these operations, and nmnerous growing tor- 

 rents which threatened irreparable mischief had been completely 

 extinguished, or at least rendered altogether harmless.f 



Besides the processes directed by the Government of France, 

 various subsidiary measm-es of an easily and economically prac- 

 ticable character have been suggested. Among them is one 

 which has long been favorably known in our Southern States 

 under the name of circling, and the adoption of wliich in hilly 

 regions in other States is to be strongly recommended. 



It is simply a method of preventing the wash of surface by 



* Travellers spending the winter at Nice may have a good opportunity of 

 studying the methods of forming and conducting the rewooding of mountain 

 slopes, under the most unfavorable conditions, by visiting Mont Boron, in the 

 immediate vicinity of that city, and other coast plantations in that province, 

 where great difficulties have been completely overcome by the skill and per- 

 severance of French foresters. See Les Forets des Maures, Revue des Eaux 

 et Forets, January, 1869. Still more formidable difficulties have been van- 

 quished in rewooding Mont Faron near Toulon, and it is hardly hyperbolical 

 to say that this is a case of impossibilities conquered. See Revue des Eaux et 

 Form, Feb., 1873. 



Even in tropical and subtropical India experiments in rewooding bare and 

 rocky soils have been tried with success. See Proceedings of the Forest Con- 

 ference at Allahabad in Jan., 1874. Calcutta, 1874, p. 158, et seq. 



f For ample details of processes and results, see the second volume of Su- 

 RELL, Etude sur les Torrents, Paris, 1872, and a Report by De La Grye, in 

 the Bemie des Eaux et Forets for January, 1869. 



