THE PRESENT CONDITION OF FORESTRY IN ITALY. 65 



providing for the conservation and improvement of existing 

 forests, for the afforestation and putting to grass of those lands 

 that cannot be kept permanently under more profitable crops, 

 for the extension of wooded pastures, for the conciliation of the 

 interests of silviculture and animal husbandry to the advantage 

 of the inhabitants of the mountains, and lastly for means of pro- 

 hibiting large landowners, neglectful of their social duties, from 

 allowing immense tracts of land go to ruin. 



The law of ist March j888, on re-afforestation, the regulations 

 for the application of which were not even published, had 

 such meagre results that it may be considered a dead letter. 



From the official statistics, it appears that between 1867 and 

 31st December 1904, the area re-afforested, at the expense of the 

 Government or with its assistance, amounted to 129,302 acres 

 with an outlay of ,^131,885. Thus in 38 years the area 

 re-afforested is 27 times smaller than that freed from servitude 

 in the second half-year of 1877. It seemed as if an adverse 

 destiny weighed on Italian forests, and even after some 

 disastrous inundations the remonstrances in the Chamber of 

 Deputies failed to obtain a satisfactory solution of the forest 

 question. 



Guido Baccelli, who in spite of the ridicule of his adversaries 

 had founded experimental school gardens and instituted an Arbor 

 Day, has the merit of having succeeded in putting through the 

 first bill (that of 29th December 1901) affirming the aesthetic 

 importance of forests ; this bill further set aside as health resorts 

 the celebrated forests of Vallombrosa, Camaldoli and Boscolungo 

 in the Tuscan Apennines, the Cansiglio forest in the province of 

 Belluno, and the Ficuzza forest in the province of Palermo. 

 Baccelli also had the courage to present a bill, on 26th April 

 1902, subjecting to servitude every wood in the kingdom what- 

 ever its position; but this was doomed to failure, and after 

 having been approved by the Senate it was buried in the offices 

 of the Chamber, notwithstanding that it contained the germs of 

 that new feeling for forests which was so soon to bear fruit and 

 to usher in the period of the restoration of woods. Thus, on 

 26th June, the measures for the protection of forests in the Sele 

 catchment basin were approved. This step, for the first time 

 in Italian legislation, affirmed the principle admitted by the 

 Romans that forests supply the courses of rivers and regulate 

 their course. 



VOL. XXIX. PART I. E 



