FLOOD CONTROL IN THE ALPS 7 



through stabilizing the outer waves of sand with mats of brush and hardy 

 herbs and then sowing the ground with maritime pine, a fast-growing 

 pitch pine native to the region. A national project for stabilizing and 

 foresting the entire Gascon dune belt, of some 250,000 acres, was initiated 

 in 1810 and completed during the following 60 years. In the prosecution 

 of this work, section by section, each land owner was given the choice of 

 doing the work himself under State supervision or of placing his land 

 under the custody of the National Government which then proceeded 

 with reforestation at its own cost. Once the forest was established the 

 owner could acquire possession of his land by reimbursing the public out- 

 lay upon it with interest. Otherwise the State retained possession until 

 its expenditures had been recouped from sales of timber and naval stores. 

 This process, in fact, was surprisingly rapid, owing to the low cost of plant- 

 ing, the rapid growth of maritime pine in the humid climate of the region, 

 and its early yields of turpentine and timber. The Government of 

 France, which did practically all the planting itself, has retained in the 

 whole dune belt some 150,000 acres. Most of this has been incorporated 

 in permanent State forests which form a protective belt along the coast 

 and are managed with special precautions to prevent fresh outbreaks of 

 the old peril. The remaining land has been restored to its original private 

 and communal owners. 



Forestation of Communal Lands. The successful reforestation of the 

 dune belt led to another public forestry enterprise in this region. A law 

 passed in 1857 ordered the planting of all the barren and unused land 

 owned by communes throughout the great sand plain known as the 

 Landes. Again the State stood ready to shoulder the work if the owners 

 of the land were unwilling or unable to carry it out and to retain possession 

 of the planted forests until the cost of their creation had been returned. 

 This time, however, State planting was unnecessary. The communes 

 carried out the law themselves and under its far-sighted terms 185,000 

 acres were added to the public forests of France. 



Flood Control in the Alps. In the control of torrential erosion in the 

 Alps, with its destructive effects upon the farm lands in the lower valleys, 

 France has undertaken another public forestry enterprise of a far more 

 difficult character. The erosion was traceable directly to forest denuda- 

 tion and excessive grazing of the Alpine pastures. The difficulty has lain 

 chiefly in the resistance of the mountain people to outside interference in 

 the exercise of their ancestral rights and the pastoral pursuits upon which 

 their livelihood largely depends. 



Following the severe floods of 1859 a law "on the reforestation of the 

 mountains" authorized the designation of restoration areas within which 

 existing forests were placed under public control and the planting of de- 

 nuded lands was decreed as necessary in the public interest. Private 



