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 



