62 LITERATURE ON TORRENTS. 



" Third Measure. — This relates to the enclosing of the torrents by 

 embankments. This enclosing should not be commenced until the forests 

 shall have produced their effects — that is to say, in fifteen or twenty years 

 after the first plantings. The engineers of roads and bridges should prepare 

 the plans of the works to be executed. The expense should be borne by 

 the proprietors interested, and by the State, which should assume the 

 responsibility for half the outlay. The effect of the dykes should be at 

 once to protect the river lands and to acquire new lands." . . 



The author calculates that the enclosing of the Durance between Sisteron 

 and the Pertuis des Mirabeau would cost at most from 4 to 5,000,000 

 francs ; and that the area of land acquired would be 10,000,000 square 

 toises or fathoms, which would be worth, at the end of three years, at least 

 10,000,000 francs. The capital in this undertaking would thus be doubled 

 at the end of three years. 



In a second division of the work, M. Dugied endeavours to show benefits 

 resulting to the State from such undertakings, which might induce them to 

 enter into this expenditure, doing it in such a way that the first expenses 

 could not be in excess of the sums to be repaid. 



" The mortgage of the sums expended by the State," he says, " will 

 resolve itself into an augmentation of the imposts to which should be 

 subjected waste lands converted into forests. Strictly, and according to 

 the rules adopted in the assessments of imposts, the augmentation should 

 be for the advantage of the Department, and should lighten the manorial 

 tax of the other proprietors. But it may be believed that the General 

 Council will consent to the addition which may be made to the manorial 

 contribution of the Department ; and it is on this augmentation, on the 

 assumption of this consent, that we can base our calculations. 



" The contribution allotted to waste lands is upon an average twenty-two 

 centimes per hectare ; that on forests is seventy-two centimes. When, then, 

 a hectare of waste lands shall have been converted into forest, it wiU 

 produce an augmentation of contribution equivalent to fifty centimes. 

 It is this difference of fifty centimes which will constitute the funds for 

 repayment. It must be observed that the fifty centimes will not be 

 touched until ten years after the sowing, if the State have granted to the 

 sowers a remission of taxation during this period of time. It must also be 

 taken into account in the calculations that aU the sowings will not be 

 successful, and that a portion of the seeds delivered gratuitously by the 

 Administration, and paid for by it, wiU have perished. It is supposed that 

 the loss of sowings may be about a fifth of the whole. 



" From these data there can be formed tables which will give, year by 

 year, a statement of the expenses, or of the returns, of the Government ; 

 and it may be seen in this way that for a sowing of 20,000 hectares, the 

 expenses of the Government at the end of ten years will have amounted to 

 534,000 francs, but that at the end of eighty-six years it will have recovered 

 all these advances. Moreover, it will have acquired an annual bonus of 

 8000 francs, seeing that the contributions will continue to run on. 



" If one extends the calculations to 150,000 hectares (that is, to the whole 

 of the area to be re-wooded), and if we suppose that the sowings will extend 

 over fifty years, it will be found that the State will have recovered these 

 advances at the end of one hundred and ten years, and that it will enjoy 

 thenceforward an annual bonus of 60,000 francs. It follows from this that 



