XXir INTRODUCTION. 



Another law not less required by the interests of ag- 

 ricuhure and society, is one having for its object the en- 

 couragement of planting forests, and the preservation of 

 those which now exist ; without some law to this effect, 

 a future and not distant period threatens their entire de- 

 struction. Without doubt private interest, more active 

 perhaps in our day, the division of property, and the loss 

 of great territorial fortunes, have prepared the way for 

 and brought on these consequences ; but the law has con- 

 tributed more than anything else to produce them. In 

 fact a proprietor pays every year a tax levied upon the 

 trees of his domain, and it is easy for him to calculate, 

 that it is more advantageous for him to fell those of 

 twenty years' growth, than to leave them to attain the 

 age of one or two centuries. 



A good law regarding district roads would be a great 

 benefit to the inhabitants of the country ; easy transpor- 

 tation by means of convenient roads is constantly re- 

 paying to the farmer the expense which he must be at in 

 making and preserving them ; since they will enable his 

 cattle to perform the same quantity of labor at a much 

 less expense of time and strength. But it is difficult to 

 obtain from the administration these important local im- 

 provements. The mayors, their assistants, and the 

 members of the municipal councils, are generally the 

 richest proprietors of a district ; and they never condemn 

 themselves, either to restore to the public ways the en- 

 croachments they have permitted to be made upon them, 

 or to furrow their fields by roads, or to support nearly 

 the whole expense which these labors for the public 

 good would require. There should be attached by law 



