8 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



nihed tor reductions and restrictions in the use of their 

 grazing lands. This fact has added to the tenacious re- 

 sistance of the mountain villages against outside inter- 

 ference in handling their own property; while the low 

 penalties of the law make an enforcement of the grazing 

 rules ordered by the Prefect practically impossible.* An 

 investigator reported in 1899 that out of the 300 odd 

 Communes, the regulation of whose grazing lands had 



SAVING A MOUNTAIN STREAM 



This conservative project is being conducted by the placing of brush 

 dams in the bed of the mountain torrent. 



been prescribed, but 3 or 4 showed any appearance of 

 regulation, and in no case was the regulation really 

 effective. 



While these human obstacles have largely nullified the 

 broad protective and preventive features of the forest 

 policy of France toward her mountains, she has accom- 

 plished splendid results through the public acquisition and 

 restoration of limited areas where devastation was most 

 acute. Aside from the Communal lands which were re- 

 forested under the earlier law, Lhe state has acquired 

 some 200,000 acres of mountain slopes and gorges. The 

 checking of torrential erosion on these areas is an ex- 

 ample of conservation by intensive methods fully as 

 striking as the stabilization of the sand dunes. The 

 line of attack is to reduce the trickling action of water 

 on slopes, prevent the starting of gullies, and hold loose 

 soil or rock in place. Tree planting is the primary 



The Penalty is a fine of 1 to 5 francs for each offense, regardless of 

 the number of animals, and can be imposed only upon the herdsman 

 not upon the owners of the stock. 



method, but it may be necessary to stabilize the soil or 

 stop the cutting action of streams before planting will be 

 effective. Small gullies are blocked up with dams of 

 sod or loose stones, brush rip raps or tree tops laid with 

 the tip up stream and the butt fastened to a picket. 

 Stretches of gully are often filled with brush, matted 

 and criss-crossed and held in place by limbs thrust 

 into the banks. More elaborate dams of rubble or 

 masonry have been built in the main channels of many 

 torrential streams, often at intervals of a few rods, in 

 order to check the rush of flood water and afford soil- 

 collecting basins which will ultimately be planted with 

 trees. Rubble or masonry dams have also been con- 

 structed at various points to stop the caving in of banks 

 or to check incipient or threatened land slips. The slip- 

 ping of one layer of soil over another from saturation 

 with water, a form of erosion common in the clay soils 



FIGHTING SOIL EROSION IN FRANCE 



The fresh gullies on the slope on the right have been filled with brush. 

 The land above them has been successfully planted and planting of the 

 slope will follow. 



of the Southern Appalachians, has been combatted by 

 the construction of paved, open drains, or gutters. Simi- 

 lar structures have been employed at a few critical points 

 to confine the channels of streams. Slopes where snow 

 avalanches are frequent and dangerous to villages have 

 been dotted with walls of dry masonry, usually about 

 45 feet long and 6 feet in the clear on the upper side, so 

 arranged as to overlap each other in the echelon forma- 

 tion of advancing troops. For these walls, low "berms" 

 may be substituted, made by simply excavating platforms 



