74 MODERN FOREST ECONOMY. 



and by sheltering it from the blasts of south wind which 

 bring to Europe a portion of the burning heat of the sands 

 of the desert, the covert of trees destroys two causes which, 

 singly or conjointly, bring on the sudden debacles of 

 spring. Under their ave of verdure the melting of snow 

 goes on always insensibly and gradually, never suddenly 

 and in a mass. 



' We read in a report addressed by M. Fare, Director- 

 General of Forests, to the Minister of Finance, relative to 

 the nature and utility of the new law on the reboisement 

 of the mountains, presented to Parliament in 1877 : 



' " Being very elevated, the Alps extend very often into 

 regions of long-continued and long-lying snows. They 

 receive the snows over an extensive area, they preserve 

 them for a long time, and thus they accumulate there the 

 more. On the return of spring the sun, by reason of the 

 latitude it has attained, has then great power. Often there 

 supervene burning winds from the south which expedite 

 still further the effect of the direct rays of the sun. The 

 result is that the melting of the snow, instead of going on 

 gradually, is effected all at once, in two days the flood 

 has passed on and the debacle is terminated." 



' What is affirmed of the Alps may be applied with a 

 slight deduction to all mountainous countries, and one 

 can well imagine that on slopes divested of trees, rain and 

 snow storms, encountering no moderators of their action 

 and their violence in the natural screens and shelters of 

 woods, must be followed by fusions, sudden and of an abun- 

 dance proportionate to the areas of these immense 

 reservoirs. But the beneficent roll of forests is not limited 

 to the protection which they afford to the portions of the 

 basins which they cover. Discharging the duty of gigantic 

 and multiplied barrages,ih.Qj oppose also their innumerable 

 obstacles to the flow of the inundating sheet proceeding 

 from the sudden debacles in the pasturages and glaciers 

 with which they are crowned,' 



Additional information in regard to the immediate and 



