Warker.—On State Forestry. xxxiii 
removed, is trully appalling. The disappearance of the forests from the 
mountains gave up the soil to the actjon of the waters, which swept it 
away into the valleys, and then the torrents becoming more and more 
devastating buried extensive tracts under their deposits, tracts which will 
probably be for ever withdrawn from agriculture. The prediction of an 
Inspector of Forests, quoted by Surrell in his ** Etudé sur les Torrents des 
Hautes Alps," has already been literally fulfilled :—‘‘ The crusts denuded 
of their vegetable soil, no longer permitting the infiltration of the waters, 
these will flow away rapidly on the surface of the ground. Then the 
springs will dry up, and the drought in summer being no longer moderated 
by their irrigation, all vegetation will be destroyed." These results, and 
far more serious ones in the shape of enormous loss both of human life, 
and of cattle, sheep, and property, have all come to pass. The loss of 
property by the inundations in the south of France, in 1875, was estimated 
by the Government at £3,000,000 sterling, and it is stated that 3,000 
persons lost their lives. The indirect results in the shape of temporary 
or permanent damage to agricultural districts by the deposit of stones and 
shingle brought from the mountains by the flood waters cannot be esti- 
mated, still less the damage to pastoral lands on the mountains themselves. 
It may be stated generally, that the results of excessive clearing of forests 
and abuse of pasturage on the French Alps and Pyrenees, have reduced 
their capacity as a sheep and goat-carrying area to such an extent that 
they cannot carry the half of what they did 50 years ago; whilst the 
damage resulting to the agricultural distriets below from the drying up of 
springs and streams, the torrents caused by heavy rains, and the melting of 
the snows and their effect on the river-banks and channels, followed by 
long droughts in summer, is simply incalculable, and such as cannot be 
repaired, even at a large expenditure, within two generations. 
The French Government, after much delay and difficulty, the result of 
local prejudice and cupidity, have undertaken the task of ‘‘ reboissement” 
in reclothing the mountains with forests, commencing with the most im- 
portant points, viz., the sources, head waters, and courses of streams, and 
the gullies extending up to the higher ridges, where water, whether from the 
clouds or melting snows, is first precipitated and accumulates. The results 
appear, so far, to have been satisfactory; but it is admitted that it will 
probably take a longer time and much more money than originally esti- 
mated to mitigate or prevent the recurrence of the disasters, which have 
been steadily increasing in magnitude during the past century, whilst the 
improvement of the pasturage on the hills or undoing the damage already 
caused below is mere matter of conjecture. The measures proposed to be 
adopted at first, included, in the interests of the shepherds, a large propor- 
