Canadian Forestry Journal, April, ipi6. 



473 



Torrent Control in France 



When the French Programme is Completed, Total Cost Will Not 

 Exceed One Year's Damage by Unruly Streams. 



By H. R. MacMillan, 

 Timber Trade Coiiivtissioner for the Canadian Government; Director, Canadian 



Forestry Association. 



The damage due to floods and 

 torrents from denuded water-sheds 

 is probably the least serious of the 

 effects of forest destruction in Can- 

 ada. Nevertheless very large sums 

 are being expended annually by rail- 

 ways in protecting road bed and 

 bridges and by municipal, provin- 

 cial, and Dominion authorities in 

 protecting roads and public works 

 c. gainst damage by torrents. The 

 total amount so expended in Can- 

 ada each year, while unknown,,, must 

 be very great indeed. Canadians 

 may therefore be assumed to be in- 

 terested in the manner in which the 

 control of torrents has been accom- 

 plished in France. It will be ob- 

 served that whereas the expenditure 

 in Canada is usually at the bottom of 

 the stream in protective works., 

 which will be a source of expense, 

 the expenditure in France is chiefly 

 at the seat of the difficulty, in refor- 

 esting the catchment area of the tor- 

 rent, a work which will require out- 

 lay for a few years only, and which 

 in some cases may actually become 

 a source of revenue. Certainly the 

 French system is more far-sighted 

 than the Canadian. 



Since the sixteenth century the 

 problem of control of torrents has 

 been periodically before the French 

 public. Investigation of torrential 

 action in 1797 gave rise to local laws 

 ior flood control . Very little action 

 was taken, however, and discussion 

 proceeded spasmodically until the 



tremendous floods of 1856 in the val- 

 leys of the Seine, Rhine, Rhone, 

 Loire and Garonne, involved the 

 whole of France in a loss reaching 

 hundreds of lives and $40,000,000 in 

 property. Always as elsewhere both 

 with forest fires and floods, discus- 

 sion of flood prevention in France had 

 been most active after disasters which 

 touched both the public imagination 

 and the individual family or pocket. 

 Sufficient had already been learned 

 concerning the causes of the moun- 

 tain floods, both from the investigaions 

 of engineers and the work already car- 

 ried out by the Government to point 

 out the proper method of regulating 

 destructive torrents and, accordingly, 

 in 1860 a law was passed providing 

 for the reforestation of the catchment 

 areas of destructive torrents, the work 

 to be carried out by the Forest Depart- 

 ment. The defects of this law were 

 that the money provided was not suf- 

 ficient for undertaking the work on 

 the scale designed, the reforestation of 

 the mountain catchment areas decreas- 

 ed the grazing areas, upon which de- 

 pended the mountain population, and 

 the right assumed by the state to ex- 

 propriate communal lands for refores- 

 tation purposes upon terms which 

 threw the expense of the work largely 

 on the mountain communities. Pro- 

 test, culminating in armed resistance, 

 led to the amendment of the law, sub- 

 stituting sodding for reforestation in 

 areas where grazing was of paramount 

 importance. Sodding did not prove 



