202 France. 



present only 125,000 acres remain in the hands of the 

 state. The returns from the sales, however, reimbursed 

 the cost of the reboisement in excess by $120,000, so that 

 the state really acquired for nothing, a property, now es- 

 timated to be worth $10,000,000. 



To the eastward of this region of dunes stretch the 

 so-called Landes, a territory triangular in shape, con- 

 taining 2,000,000 acres of shifting sands and marshes, on 

 which a poor population of shepherds (on stilts) used 

 to eke out a living. In 1837 an engineer of the admin- 

 istration of bridges and roads (administration des ponts 

 et chausses), conceived the idea of improving this sec- 

 tion by reforestation, and at his own erpense recovered 

 some 1,200 acres in the worst marsh by ditching and 

 planting. The success of this plantation invited imita- 

 tors and by 1835 the reforested area had grown to 50,000 

 acres. This led in 1857 to the passage of a law ordering 

 forestation of the parts of the land owned by the com- 

 munities, the state at the same time undertaking the 

 expense of building a system of roads and making the 

 plans for forestation free of charge. The communities 

 were allowed to sell a part of the reclaimed land in order 

 to recover the expense. From 1850 to 1892, private 

 owners imitating the government and communal work, 

 1,750,000 acres were covered with pine forests at a cost 

 of $4.00 to $5.00 per acre, or, including the building of 

 roads, a total of around $10,000,000 had been expended. 

 In 1877 the value of the then recovered area was esti- 

 mated at over $40,000,000, this figure being arrived at 

 by calculating the possible net revenues of a pinery under 

 a 75 years rotation, which was figured at $2.50 per 

 acre with a production of 51 cubic feet per acre, and 200 



