Canadian Forestry Journal, March, ig20 



Controlling Torrents in France 



B\) H. R. MacMillan, 



When the French Programme is Completed, Total Cost Will 

 Not Exceed One Year's Damage 



(Republished from an earlier Forestry Journal by request.) 



The damage due to floods and tor- 

 rents from denuded water-sheds is 

 probably the least serious of the ef- 

 fects of forest destruction in Canada. 

 Nevertheless very large sums are 

 being expended annually by railways 

 in protecting road bed and bridges 

 and by municipal, provincial and 

 Dominion authorities in protecting 

 roads and public works against dam- 

 age by torrents. The total amount 

 so expended in Canada each year, 

 while unknown, must be very great 

 indeed. Canadians may therefore be 

 assumed to be interested in the man- 

 ner in which the control of torrents 

 has been accomplished in France. It 

 will be observed that whereas the 

 expenditure in Canada is usually at 

 the bottom of the stream in protec- 

 tive works, which will be a source 

 of expense, the expenditure in France 

 is chiefly at the seat of the difificulty, 

 in reforesting the catchment area of 

 the torrent, a work which will re- 

 quire outlay for a few years only, and 

 which in some coses may actually 

 become a source of revenue. Certainly 

 the French system is more far- 

 sighted than the Canadian. 



Since the sixteenth century the 

 problem of control of torrents has 

 been periodically befoire the French 

 public. Investigation of torrential 

 action in 1797 gave rise to local laws 

 for flood control. \^ery little action 

 was taken, however, and discussion 

 proceeded spasmodically until tlio 

 tremendous floods of 1856 in the val- 

 leys of the Seine, Rhine, Rhondc, 

 Loire and Garonne, involved the 

 whole of France in a loss reaching 

 hundreds of lives and $40,000,000 in 

 ])roperty. Always as elsewhere both 

 with forest fires and floods, discus- 

 sion of flood prevention in France had 



been most active after disasters which 

 touched both the public imagination 

 and the individual family or pocket. 

 Sufficient had already been learned 

 concerning the causes of the moun- 

 tain floods, both from the investiga- 

 tions of engineers and the work al- 

 ready carried out by the Government 

 to point out the proper method of 

 regulating destructive torrents and. 

 accordingly, in i860 a law was passed 

 providing for the reforestation of the 

 catchment areas of destructive tor- 

 rents, the work to be carried out by 

 the Forest Department. The defects 

 of this law were that the money pro- 

 vided was not sufficient for under- 

 taking the work on the scale designed, 

 the reforestation of the mountain 

 catchment areas decreased the graz- 

 ing areas, upon which depended the 

 mountain population, and the right 

 assumed by the state to expropriate 

 communal lands for reforestation 

 purposes upon terms which threw the 

 expense of the work largely on the 

 mountain communities. Protest, cul- 

 minating in armed resistance, led to 

 the amendment of the law, substitut- 

 ing sodding for reforestation in areas 

 where grazing was of paramount 

 importance Sodding did not prove 

 a satisfactory means of stream con- 

 trol, and the other defects remained. 

 Finally, in 1882. after 18 years of 

 agitation, the work of torrent control 

 was placed upon a new basis by the 

 law at present in force. 



All Interests Considered. 



The Forest Service still remains 

 responsible for the work of stream 

 control. ^^'orks are undcrt.ikcn only 

 where soil erosion has begun. The 

 projects of the Forest Service are 

 examined bv a government commis- 



