83 



In 1865 the Legislative Assembly passed a bill amendatory of the law of 

 1860, providing, among other things for securing the soil in exposed localities by 

 grading, and by promoting the growth of grass and the formation of greensward 

 over the surface. 



In l!S63, France imported lumber t<> the value of twenty-five-and-a-half 

 millions of dollars, and exported to the amount of six and a half millions of 

 dollars. The annual consumption of France was estimated in 1886 at 212,- 

 000,000 cubic feet for building and manufacturing, and 1,588,500,000 for fire- 

 wood and charcoal. The annual product of the forest soil of France does not 

 exceed 70,000,000 cubic feet of wood tit for industrial use, and 1,300,000,000 cubic 

 feet consumed as fuel. This estimate does not include the product of scattered 

 trees on private grounds, but the consumption is estimated to exceed the produc- 

 tion of the forests by the amount of about twenty millions of dollars. 



The timber for building and manufacturing produced in France comes almost 

 wholly from the forests of the State or of the communes. 



FORESTS OF ITALY. 



According to statistics, Italy had 17.64 per cent, of woodland in 1872, a 

 proportion which, considering the character of climate and surface, the great 

 amount of soil which is tit for no other purpose than the growth of trees, and 

 the fact that much of the land classed as forest was then either very imperfectly 

 wooded, or covered with gioves badly administered, and not in a state of pro- 

 gressive improvement, might advantageously be doubled. 



Taking Italy as a whole, we may say she is eminently fitted by climate, soil 

 and superficial formation for the growth of a varied and luxuriant arborial 

 vegetation. In such a country the promotion of forestal industry was among 

 the first duties of her people. 



The denudation of the central and southern Appenines and of the Italian 

 declivity of the western Alps began at a period of unknown antiquity, but it 

 does not seem to have been carried to a very dangerous length until the foreign 

 conquests and extended commerce of Rome created a greatly increased demand 

 for wood for the construction of ships and for military material. 



The eastern Alps, the western Appenines, and the maritime Alps retain 

 their forests much later ; but even here the want of wood, and the injury 

 to the plains and the navigation of the rivers by sediment brought down 

 by the torrents, led to legislation for the protection of the forests by the Republic 

 of Venice at various periods between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries,* by 

 that of Genoa, as early at least as the seventeenth, and both these Governments, 

 as well as several others, passed laws requiring the proprietors of mountain land 

 to replant the woods. 



Although 110 country has produced more able writers on the value of the 

 forest and the general consequences of its destruction than Italy, yet the specific 

 geographical importance of the woods, except as a protection against inundations 

 has not been so clearly recognized in that country as in the States bordering it 

 on the north and west. It must be remembered that the sciences of observation 

 did not become knowledges of practical application till after the mischief was 



*According to Hummel, the desolation of the Karats, the high plateau lying north of Trieste, one of 

 the most parched and barren districts in Europe, was owing to the felling of its woods centuries ago to 

 build the navies of Venice. ' Where the miserable peasant of the Karat sees nothing but bare rock swept 

 and scoured by the raging Bora, the fury of this wind was once subdued by mighty firs which Venice reck- 

 lessly cut down to build her fleets. 1 ' Physiche Geogra$>he, p. 32. 



