270 DEVASTATIONS AND EESTORATIONS. 



exploitations, which, by denuding the ground, would give birth immediately 

 to new ravines and, as a consequence, to new dangers, 



" The Municipal Council of the Bourg d'Oisans, by a decision of the 10th 

 May 1866, decided to give up to the Administration the execution of the works 

 oi reboisemenf and gazonnement ; the State, moreover, remains charged with the 

 gazonnement of the lands in dispute with the commune of Villard-Eymond, 

 this last having refused to make known its intentions. 



" Face to face with the increasing devastations, and with the urgency of 

 a prompt execution of the works designed to avert them, the Forest Agents 

 undertook from 1866 the different operations of acknowledged necessity. 

 They constructed on the torrent of the Saint-Antoine four larrages of dry 

 stone masonry, measuring together 460 cubic mfetres. They dug un canal 

 de derivation, or channel for leading off the stream, 240 mfetres long. And that 

 they might be able to fix, by rewooding, the abandoned river-bed of the 

 V6n6on, they covered with /asawg* of willow wands a surface of 5 hectares, 

 composed of mobile earth, on the precipitous slopes, and planted 45,000 

 alders, or birches, and 240,000 resinous trees, on an area of 16 hectares. 



" Prosecuted with vigour in the subsequent years, the works executed up 

 to the 1st January 1869 may be summed up thus : — 



" The plantation, on 43 hectares 11 ares, of resinous trees, alders, willows, 

 and birches ; 



"The sowing, on 43 hectares 11 ares, of 590 kilogrammes of seeds of 

 the same kinds of trees ; 



" The construction of 20 harrages of stone, comprising 1920 cubic mfetres ; 



" The opening of a canal de derivation of 240 metres ; 



" The employment of more than 300,000 willows in hurdles and fascines 

 for the fixing and consolidation of shifting land. 



" The whole expense of the work, inclusive of material, transport, and 

 labour, amounted, for the works of all kinds, to the sum of 21,206 francs 

 30 centimes, 



" If it were required to specify the failures which have occurred in the 

 works of rehmsement, properly so called, sowings and plantations, notwith- 

 standing the care which the Agents have bestowed upon them, it might be 

 affirmed that the works in harrages and willow /ascme works have succeeded 

 in a very remarkable way, and have offered an effectual barrier to the tor- 

 irent of Saint-Antoine. And although the harrages and fascine works, acknow- 

 ledged to be necessary, have not been entirely completed, the torrent appears 

 subdued, the considerable mass of material wliich it was carrying away has 

 been arrested, the tumbling down of earth does not produce more ; and, on 

 the imperial road, No. 91, from Grenoble to Briangons, communication is no 

 longer intercepted. 



" But here, as in other p6rimfetres, the plantations of Austrian pine have 

 onlygiven mediocre results : the plants of these brought from remote nurseries 

 got heated in the transport, and arrived more or less damaged ; the Norway 

 firs and the larches have succeeded to the extent of 50 per cent. ; the 

 willows, the alders, and the birches, planted in the moist alluvia of the 

 Vev6an have succeeded to the extent of 90 per cent. The sowings have 

 generally failed ; they have been unable to withstand on these denuded 

 lands the vigour of the winter and the sun's heat during summer. The want 

 of success should be in part attributed to certain mistakes made in the dis- 

 tribution of the different kinds of trees, to exposures, and to elevations 

 which are unsuitable to them. 



