184 THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE CHAP, 
vineyards are being washed away, the towns 
are threatened, the population is dwindling, 
and unless something is done the country will 
be reduced to a desert; until, when it has 
been released from the destructive presence of 
man, Nature reproduces a covering of vege- 
table soil, restores the vegetation, creates the 
forests anew, and once again fits these regions 
for the habitation of man. 
In another part of France we have an illus- 
tration of the opposite process. 
The region of the Landes, which fifty years 
ago was one of the poorest and most miserable 
in France, has now been made one of the most 
prosperous owing to the planting of Pines. 
The increased value is estimated at no less 
than 1,000,000,000 francs. Where there were 
fifty years ago only a few thousand poor and 
unhealthy shepherds whose flocks pastured on 
the scanty herbage, there are now sawmills, 
charcoal kilns, and turpentine works, inter- 
spersed with thriving villages and fertile agri- 
cultural lands. 
In our own country, though woodlands are 
perhaps on the increase, true forest scenery is 
