EEPOET BY MINISTBE OP FINANCE, 1860. 149 



distribution of premiums; in those wWoli relate to communes and to public 

 bodies, in subventions in money wldch might be granted before the execu- 

 tion of the works, but the grants should be proportionate to the wants, to the 

 resources, and to the sacrifices made by the several departments and by the 

 several communes. 



" The projets de loi, which have been proposed for the replanting of the 

 mountains with woods, in 1845 and 1847, have recognized the necessity of 

 authorising, in a public interest so very great, the distribution of subven- 

 tions and of premiums, as well as the supply of plants and of seeds. This 

 first part of the projet de loi need not then raise the question of principle. 

 The Administration will only require to take the necessary measures to see 

 that the subventions be distributed with discernment. In point of fact, it 

 is not necessary that the whole of the lands susceptible of replanting 

 should be covered with woods ; in many places a covering of the land 

 with turf may suffice to ensure the maintenance of the land on the 

 mountain, and, where the planting with wood is a recognized advantage, 

 the subventions ought not to have as their result to substitute the action of 

 the State for the initiation of the work by the individual. 



" Communes which may be disposed to demand too high subventions, 

 regard being had to the sacrifices which they impose upon themselves, should 

 only receive from the State co-operation subject to certain conditions, which 

 may perhaps appear somewhat severe, such as a proportional participation 

 in the forests created on the communal lands. ' It would not be just, indeed, 

 that certain privileged communes should be able to draw to themselves all 

 the benefit of the subvention. The benefit, in order to its being shared by 

 a great many, should not be applied to each otherwise than in a certain 

 proportion. If this proportion be exceeded, the pecuniary co-operation of 

 the State should assume another character, and the subvention become an 

 advance to be paid back, at least in part, to the public treasury, through a 

 cession of a portion of the lands, the principal value of which will have 

 arisen from the replanting of them with woods. 



" At the same time, it is impossible not to foresee that, notwithstanding the 

 subventions ofiered, and notwithstanding the advances which the State may 

 be willing to make, there may be communes, or private proprietors, utterly 

 unable to execute the replanting, and yet on certain determinate places, 

 replanting may be demanded, not only by manifest public interest, but, so 

 to speak, by an imperious necessity. 



" There are, on the mountains, places which are more especially threatened 

 by the violence of rivers, by the impetuosity of torrents, and by the fall of 

 avalanches or of rocks. Such, for example, are certain lands on steep 

 declivities, situated on the sides, or at the debouche of torrents ; such are 

 villages exposed without shelter to catastrophes which are in some measure 

 periodical. The reformation of wooded masses, designed to arrest the 

 ravages of waters, and to divert from the places imperilled disastrous efi'ects 

 of great natural disturbances, is in the highest degree a work of public 

 interest. In such masses of woods as are desired every thing combines to 

 ofi'er resistance to the scourges which desolate the mountains : the roots of 

 trees keep the ground in its place and consolidate the soil, the branches 

 form a shelter against the storm and wind, the leaves fertilize the light bed 

 of vegetable earth covering the rock. 



" The rebcdsement presents, then, in these exceptional cases, and at certain 

 determinate places, a character of public utility such that the necessary 



