IT PREFAOB. 



are facta well-deaerving of consideration in the diacusaion of the expediency of 

 planting Crown lands with treea. 



Towards the close of last year, 1874, still more disastrous effects 

 were produced by torrential floods. According to the report given 

 by one of the Colonial newspapers, the damages done could not be 

 estimated at much less than £300,000. According to the report 

 given by another, the damage done to public works alone was esti- 

 mated at £350,000, — eight millions, seven hundred and fifty thousand 

 francs. And my attention was called anew to the subject. 



On addressing myself to M. Far^ Director General of the Admini- 

 stration of Forests in France, there was afforded to me every facility 

 I could desire for extending and verifying the information I had 

 previously collected in regard to the works of reboisement to which I 

 have referred. Copies of additional documents were supplied to me, 

 with copies of works sanctioned by the Administration, and arrange- 

 ments were made for my visiting and inspecting, with every assistance 

 required, the works begun and the works completed ; and thus I have 

 been enabled to submit a much more complete report than it would 

 otherwise have been in my power to produce. 



While the compilation I have prepared owes its publication at this 

 time to the occurrence of the inundations of last year at the Cape of 

 Good Hope, the publication has been undertaken in the hope that 

 in other countries beside South Africa the information may be turned 

 to practical account. 



It may prevent misapprehension if I state that I do not for a 

 moment suppose that the measures adopted to control Alpine torrents 

 are measures to be adopted in their entirety, and without modification, 

 to control all torrential floods. I profess only to supply information 

 in regard to what has been done in certain definite circumstances ; 

 and thus to place the practical hydraulic engineer, who may have to 

 prescribe for special cases which may be somewhat analogous, in 

 possession of the information I happen to have collected in regard to 

 what has been done in France, leaving him to turn this to practical 

 account as he may. I may add, it was not until twenty years after 

 the publication of the work by M. Surell, which is considered to be 

 the work which gave rise to the operations now being carried on in 

 France, that these operations were commenced ; and this was upwards 

 of sixty years after similar views had been published by Fabre. And 

 in view of this fact, I shall not be surprised, nor shall I be discouraged 



