October 24, 1888.] 



Garden and Forest. 



417 



Still it inay be a desirable piece of iiifoniiatioii for some one, 

 when applied to the culture of the bennett, and as such it is 

 now offered. There has also been some dift'erenceof opinion 

 as to the best temperature in which to grow the Bennett, and 

 it may be stated that, in the experience of the writer, the best 

 flowers have always been found at the coolest end of the 

 house, where the temperature would not average more than 

 50° during cold nights. II''. 



Phil.ndelpliia. 



The Forest. 

 New Forest Law tor Italy. 



IN Italy, on the ist of May, 1888, a new forest law went into 

 effect, in which full recognition of the established truths 

 regarding forest influences, and the highest statesmanship, 

 are both discernible. Although this new law is not as thor- 

 ough-going as some of its advocates had desired, it is based 

 on sound and liberal principles, recognizing individual rights, 

 but recognizing, too, the right and duty of the State to pre- 

 vent any exercise of individual freedom which injures the 

 community at large. 



The C.overnment forests in Italy (116,000 acres, according to 

 latest returns) comprise only 1.6 percent, of the total forest 

 area ; the balance of over 7,000,000 acres belongs to com- 

 munities, corporations and private owners. The forest law of 

 1877, recognizing the need of government protection to the 

 agricultural interests, which were being injured by forest de- 

 vastation and denudation of mountain-sides, had placed 

 nearly one-half of this area vnider " forest boiuids," or Govern- 

 ment supervision, namely, "all woods and lands cleared of 

 wood on the summits or slopes of mountains above the upper 

 limit of Chestnut growth, and also those that from their char- 

 acter and situation may, in consequence of being cleared or 

 tilled, give rise to landslips, caving in, avalanches, snowslides, 

 and may, to the public injury, interfere with water-courses 

 or change the character of the soil, or injure the local hygienic 

 conditions." 



In the latter case (hygienic considerations) it was optional 

 with the communities to apply for Government interference, 

 the communal or provincial forestal council having to deter- 

 mine whether the application should prevail, and the com- 

 munity being bound to indemnify the proprietor for any 

 material damage that might result to him from having his 

 property placed under "forest bounds." 



Where reforestation was considered necessary, it was to be 

 done at the joint expense of the Government, the provinces 

 and the communities, and the right to seize, for reasons 

 of public utility, in order to replant, was given to the forestal 

 committee or council in each province, if the proprietor 

 refused to do the work himself. 



Under this law there were created forestal committees in 

 thirteen provinces, with a yearly fund of $4,000 — one-half con- 

 tributed by the general Government, the other half by the 

 province — while the Forest Department tried to promote 

 reforestation by giving premiums, distributing plant mate- 

 rial and furnishing gratis advice through its foresters ; the 

 Government besides obligated itself to contribute two-thirds 

 of the cost of reforestation to the reforestation associations, 

 the formation of which was encouraged by the law. 



Of the 76,000 acres, which were found to recjuire reforesta- 

 tion for reasons of public safety, there were reforested during 

 twenty years, from 1867 to 1886, under this and previous laws, 

 22,000 acres, the Government contributing $85,000; the prov- 

 inces and communities, $95,000; private owners, $35,000; the 

 Government had, in addition, furnished 8,000,000 plants and 

 260,000 pounds of seed, free of charge. This was, indeed, 

 slow progress, due to the absence of properly constituted 

 authority to advance the work. 



The devastating floods of the year 1882 produced a favorable 

 feeling for more enei'getic measures, and the present law has 

 been the result; a law evidently drawn with care and worth 

 studying by our forestry reformers in devising measures soon 

 to be needed here. It may certainly be considered the best 

 law now existing in any country, for securing the benefits re- 

 sulting to the community at large from a continuous forest 

 cover of mountainous districts, liberal in spirit to individual 

 owners, and yet placing the rights and welfare of the many above 

 the willful and regardless exercise of private property rights. 



The essential feature of the law, comprising twenty-one 

 articles, may be briefly summed up as follows : 



Article i declares the reforestation and *re-sodding of moun- 



^'^ The Commission which investigated the working of the French reforestation 

 laws for the purpose of framingthis lawintellit^ently shows the value of re-sodding 

 for purposes of binding the soil and regulatmg waterflovv to be illusory. The 

 decision whether reforestation or re-sodding is to be resorted to, is left to the For- 

 est .administration. 



fains and dunes as a means to restore their usefulness and to 

 regulate mountain streams, a public and urgent necessity, to 

 l>e undertaken under the charge of the DepartmenI of Agri- 

 culture. A list of the territory to be reforested, with estimates 

 of the cost, is to be prepared by the Department, in co-opera- 

 tion with the Department of Public Works, and to be sub- 

 mitted to the owners of the land, wlio may make their objec- 

 tions to the proposed Government supervision, through the 

 forestal committee of the province. It the Department, with 

 the advice of the forest counselor and the counselor of pub- 

 lic works, decides for Government supervision, the land falls 

 under the regulation of the forest protective law of 1877, 

 and their reforestation and management, under Government 

 supervision, becomes obligatory. (Articles 2, 3, 4.) 



The owners are permitted to associate themselves in order 

 to undertake the work of reforestation co-operatively, and it 

 the owners of three-fifths of the reforestation district, with a 

 taxable value of at least one-half the total tax value, declare 

 for association, it is legally so constituted. Yet association is 

 not obligatory to the owners who wish to keep out of the asso- 

 ciation. They must, however, share in the general work and 

 expenses, by which they may be benefited, or else they can 

 be expropriated with suitable compensation by either the 

 Government or the Association. This right exists also if they 

 do not comply on their own property with the general plans 

 of work. The owners in association contribute according to 

 the tax value of their property and so do those outside the 

 association for the general work — road making, binding of 

 torrents, etc. Such associations are to have the same rights 

 as associations for irrigating purposes and may borrow money 

 at the low interest at which the soil-credit institutions of the 

 State are loaning. (Articles 5 to 10.) 



The Forest IJepartment is to contribute to the extent of 

 three-fifths of the total expense of the work of reforesta- 

 tion to associations and private owners, upon the condition 

 that the plans for the work prepared by the Department 

 be followed and the work be done in the specified time. 

 Where the owners do not consent, or fail to do the work, the 

 Department has the right to expropriate under the common 

 law and perform the work alone. (Articles 11 to 16.) 



The tracts thus acquired by the Government may be sold 

 again before or after the work of reforestation is perfected, 

 and the owners may reclaim their property within five years 

 after reforestation, by paying the price paid them, together 

 with the cost of work and interest on the same (Arts. 16 and 17). 



The plans and regulations for the reforestation and man- 

 agement of the reforested grounds are prepared by the For- 

 estry Department, to whom, yearly, a special fund will be ap- 

 propriated for this work upon the basis of its report. (Arti- 

 cles 18 and 20.) 



Article 19 allows the Department to restrict and regulate 

 pasturage for the purpose of securing the soil and young 

 growth in all mountainous districts, where such regulation 

 seems called for, but it must pay a compensation to such 

 owners as they are periodically prevented from grazing their 

 cattle, and for any other damage in the use of their property 

 they may eventually suffer. 



It appears, then, that while the necessity for energ-etic 

 measures is fully recognized, the law is careful to respect, as 

 much as possible, individual rights. Free-will is allowed to 

 determine the associated elTorts, the Government simply 

 determines the method and manner of work which it subsid- 

 izes, and undertakes the work itself only when private interest 

 opposes itself to the common necessity. In Italy, as with us, 

 the national idea is against the State owning property, and 

 therefore the provision for selling- the reforested area or 

 returning it conditionally to the former owner, while under 

 the French law, under similar circumstances, only a part of 

 the expropriated property can be reclaimed from the gov- 

 ernment. 



The proposition to release, as in France and Switzerland, 

 the reforested land from taxes for thirty years was, after a 

 livelv debate, voted down, and the contribution to the work 

 of three-fifths of the cost was substituted ; the more reason- 

 able motion, that the owners of land in the valley, who are de- 

 cidedly benefited by the work on the mountains, should con- 

 tribute towards it, was also lost. 



The Department has already prepared the surveys and 

 working plans for forty provinces, which contain an area to 

 be reforested of 261,074 acres, at an estimated cost of $4,- 

 640,000, while the remaining twenty-nine provinces will in- 

 ci-ease the area, it is estimated, to 534,728 acres, and the cost 

 to a round $12,000,000. 



Thus Italy finds it necessary to tax herself in order to avert 

 losses and dangers which the improvident clearing of moun- 



