LANDLORDS A NATURAL GROWTH 153 



tlie chemin vicinal, clejMrtemental, and national. The first 

 class is kept in repair by the Communes, the second by the 

 Department, the third by the State. It is the duty of the 

 road overseer to assess the expenses of the repairs. 



Lastly, the State assists works of irrigation, reclama- 

 tion, and similar improvements, indirectly through the 

 Credit Foncier, and directly with subventions and loans. It 

 has facilitated means of transport, subventioned the erec- 

 tion of bridges in place of the old ferries, assisted canals, 

 railways, and roads. It has aided in works of irrigation like 

 those of Verdon, near Aix, St. Martory (Haute-Garonne), 

 Lagoin (Basses-Pyr§nees), La Bourne, near Valence. It 

 has helped to improve barren wastes by such means as 

 winter submersions in the valleys of the Durance, the Arc, 

 and the Isere. It has attempted to replant the forests, 

 and so check the ruinous floods so common in the moun- 

 tainous districts of the Alps. It has assisted in the re- 

 clamation of La Sologne, the barren tract of heath and 

 furze or sandy wastes diversified with marshy ponds, which 

 formerly belonged to the Orleanais, and now makes up 

 part of the Departments of the Loir-et-Cher, the Cher, and 

 the Loiret. Thirty years ago this district was a desolate 

 thinly populated plain, soppy as a sponge in winter, dry as 

 a cinder in the summer, and so unhealthy that the average 

 length of human life was only twenty-seven years, inhabited 

 by a stunted race whose stupidity passed into the prover- 

 bial saying of ' un niais de Sologne.' The State set on foot 

 drainage works, cleaned out the watercourses, introduced 

 marl, planted pines, and set an example which has been 

 followed by many proprietors. So, too, it has aided to 

 drain the district of the Dombes (Ain), where grass alter- 

 nates with water and cattle with fish, and to bring into 

 cultivation the landes of Gascony by pine plantations. 



