108 MODERN FOREST ECONOMY. 



While drawing upon Algeria for illustrations of general 

 advantages resulting from reboisement, I shall adduce 

 illustrations of the effects of reboisement in arresting and 

 preventing the occurence of torrents and inundations from 

 what has been seen inj:he Alps; and in illustration of the 

 effect of reboisement in fixing down and utilising drift sand 

 I shall cite some accounts of what has been done in 

 Northern Germany : premising that illustrations of each 

 of these categories of advantages equally striking might 

 have been drawn from other lands besides these. 



SECTION A. GENERAL ADVANTAGES RESULTING FROM 

 REBOISEMENT EXPERIENCED IN ALGERIA. 



A colonist from Boghari wrote some years since : 

 ' Twenty years ago we had numerous flocks, thanks to the 

 splendid pasture lands ; and when we wished to see the 

 desert it was necessary to go on horseback from 45 to 50 

 kilometres. To-day we have no longer any trace of 

 pasture lands, and therefore no flocks ; and as for the 

 desert we have no occasion to go so far to see it ; leaving 

 the threshold of our houses, we step at once on to the 

 sand deep and far-extending sand.' 



The picture is saddening, contrasting as it does with 

 the amenity of numerous country mansions in Britain and 

 elsewhere surrounded by woods and lawns produced by 

 planting and culture. But like measures have, in pro- 

 portion to the extent, produced like amenity there. 



M. J. Reynard, Sub-Inspector of Forests, writing on the 

 restoration of forests and pastures in the south of Algieria, 

 in the province of Algiers, cites the following statement : 

 'The probable results of these combined works will be, 

 the rendering more regular, and approximately more 

 uniform, a climate which is violent and extreme in its 

 sudden variations ; the amelioration of the regime of the 

 rivers, producing in turn an augmentation of the delivery 

 by the springs, and rendering more regular the flow of 

 streams and rivers, which at present have all the charac- 



