344 KEBOISEMENT' IN FRANCE. 



t 



reserve the power of taking into consideration on each demand, the amount of the 

 snbvention to be j^rauted. A maximum cannot, therefore, be fixed. As regards the 

 communes, the administration intends, where required, to consider the subventions 

 voted by the general councils of the departments as a direct participation iu bearing 

 the expense of the works. 



Several employees have given an opinion that aid should be offered 

 in preference to proprietors whose lands are included iu the perimeters, 

 so as especially to encourage reboisements of acknowledged public 

 utility. 



Remarks. — The law grants aid iu cases of sanctioned as well as in compulsory re- 

 boisement. The administration will proportion in both these cases the amount to the 

 expected result of the enterprise, regard being had principally to the public iutereata. 



Metliod of carrying on operations ; nurseries. — Differences of opinion 

 were expressed in regard to the extent that should be given to nurseries. 

 It was agreed that this should depend on the yield, and the extent to be 

 planted. There was also a difference of views as to great central nurs- 

 eries or many small one scattered here and there where they are most 

 needed. 



Remarks. — The chief efFoct of the former, in close proximity to great populous cen- 

 ter?, is to attract public attention, and induce the owners of waste mountain lauds to 

 plant by the facilities olfered for supplies. 8uch nurseries can also be more cheaply 

 taken care of. Still nothing is fixed, and no preference is expressed for either. 



Difference also arose as to whether the soil, elevation, climate, &c., of 

 nurseries should be the best possible, so as to grow the most healthy 

 plants, or such as the trees should have when transplanted, so that too 

 great changes would not be required. Some, from the same view also, 

 thought that the soil should not be manured, but, where necessary, the 

 soil should rather be pulverized and vegetable composts used, especially 

 such as come from the woods. 



Remarks.— If the nursery can be placed where the soil is good, and at a moderate 

 distance from the district to be replanted, it will evidently bo of advantage to the State 

 to become its owner. There are almost always dangers in fixing the position of a nurs- 

 ery, if care be not taken to stipulate in ihe leases the guarantees necessary to protect 

 the interests of the State. There is reason to believe that in most cases the purchase 

 is of greater importance than the eituatiou, since the State can always, when neces- 

 sary, sell the land which has been improved by culture when it becomes useless as a 

 nursery. 



It is agreed that the ground of a nursery should be always thoroughly 

 pulverized at least 30 centimeters (about a foot) deep. All are not agreed 

 as to the quantity of seed needed. As to pine, the opinions agreed upon 

 8 to 10 kilograms per hectare (8.8 to 10.7 pounds per acre). 



Sowing the whole nursery and extracting the plants from a third of 

 the whole at the end of two years, with an immediate resowiug of the 

 ground, and so on for the other two-thirds, appeared to some an econom- 

 ical plan, yielding satisfactory results. By this system, the plants would 

 1)6 used without being first planted out. 



Others thought that with regard to nurseries there should be less 

 thought of the expense, than of the benefit to be expected, and that it 

 ■was above all things necessary, especially at the beginning of a great 

 enterprise, to employ all possible means to insure success; and that, 

 with this in view, the gronnd should be divided into strips, which should 

 alternately be sown and left unoccupied ; that the young trees should 

 be planted out carefully, to allow of a proper development of the root ; 

 and finally, that the sowings should be graduated in such a way as to 

 obtain a difference of age favorable for transplanting. 



Remarks. — The idea underlying this suggestion is » sound one. Attention should 

 he given primarily to the efficiency of the nursery, and the question of saving expense 

 ehould be secondary to this. 



