THE LOWEE ALPS. 273 



28 ares, belonging to the two communes of Beaujeu and of Vemet. It 

 extends over two very precipitous slopes, the one with a northrwest, the 

 other with a south-east exposure. The soil, belonging to the jurassique 

 formation, is composed of black marls and calcareous rock, which easijy 

 disintegrate under the action of meteoric agents. The imperial road, No. 

 100, traverses the p6rimfetre on an embankment of about 3 kilometres, along 

 the right bank of the torrent of Labouret, and leaning on the left hand 

 against a very abrupt declivity of rooks in a state of decomposition: 

 Formerly numerous transhumant flocks passed hither and thither in the 

 bed of the toiTent in going to the mountain pastures, where they spent the 

 summer, or in returning thence to winter in the plains of the Crau. These 

 devoured any little herbage which had come to fix itself on the hills 

 between the two roads. When the rains came, if these were abundant and 

 sudden in the region of the Lower A.lps, the waters flowing freely on a cqj, 

 completely denuded, and accumulated rapidly in the ravines, sweeping away 

 with them earth and stones, and forming quickly a blackish mud which precipi- 

 tated itself with violence towards the foot of the mountain, and in doing so 

 destroying the imperial road and covering with a layer of gravel thp 

 cultivated grounds of Beaujeu and of Javie. 



i^The reboisement of the p6rimfetre of the Labouret was declared of public 

 utility, after the legal formalities, by a decree of 18th June 1862. The 

 works were begun in 1863. They embraced the construction of barrages as 

 well as the sowing and planting of forest trees or of forage herbs. 



"The barrages constructed up to 1869 were in number 2,139: — viz., 210 

 of stone, 503 of wood, and 1,426 in planted twigs or fascines of willow. The 

 wooden barrages in general offered but little resistance ; the greater part 

 have been destroyed and swept away by the first floods of the torrent. 

 Those of stone and fascines have done better ; they have rapidly consolidated 

 the ground and facilitated the subsequent execution of works of sowing and 

 planting. One year after their erection, when the earth washed down 

 arrested by them had reached about the level of the barrage, no time was 

 lost in fixing this mobile earth by planting it with shoots and cuttitgs of 

 quick-growing wood, especially willows. The steeper hills were also fixed 

 by the growth of fescue grass. 



" The kinds of trees which have been employed are the cedar, the 

 Austrian pine, the Scotch fir, the Mugho or dwarf pine, the Corsican pine, 

 the ash, the willow, the acacia, the ailanthus, the hippophae, the walnut, the 

 oytisus, the alisier, the maple, &c. 



" There have been sown 4,616 kilogrammes of seeds of resinous trees, and 

 332 kilogrammes, of broad-leaved trees. There have been planted out 

 besides this 200,729 plants of resinous trees, and 439,261 plants of broad- 

 leaved trees, including 10,000 shoots or cuttings, and further, there have 

 been sown 8,495 kilogrammes of the seed of sainfoin, or of fenasse. 



" In the first years of these operations the seed was sown broadcast 

 without any previous preparation of the ground, but this yielded no results. 

 So also the first plantations made in the bed of the torrent before the con- 

 solidation of the hills were rapidly swept away by the waters. From 

 1867 the works have been better directed. Barrages, and more especially 

 those constructed of fascines, have been multiplied in the birth-place of the 

 ravines to stop the washing away of mud, and the sowings, as well as the 

 plantations, have received all the care required. 



" The total expense up to this time [1869] amounts to the sum of 42,221 



2l 



