DEPARTMENT OP LOZERE. 281 



out for themselves new beds, and ravaging the soil so deeply that in many 

 places they left only the hard rock. You have, with imprudent hands, 

 overturned the barriers which retain the waters ; you have cut down your 

 woods, you have put your turf-covered banks under culture, and now you 

 are astonished ! Have you then no experience, and have times past taught 

 you nothing? 



" Glance over the Lot, from its source down to Barjac, and all along its 

 course you will see nothing but stripped, bare, and naked rock ; here and 

 there some stumps of trees are there as if to attest that but lately there 

 was there vegetable soil, and splendid woods and forests. Go from Mende 

 to Florae, and over a stretch of 40 kilometres, and the same scene of desol- 

 ation will be seen. Formerly all these sharp declivities were shaded by old 

 pines and beeches and oaks ; what a treasure ! And to-day there is only 

 the rock — the rock doomed forever to sterility, if you no not try to replant 

 it with woods. Let a great storm come and our roads are covered with 

 debris, and travelling is interrupted ; and the State is compelled year by 

 year to lay out for the restoration immense sums, which, but for this, had 

 been more usefully employed in the improvement of our great highways. 

 Communication is interrupted for many weeks, and agriculture suffers, 

 because the farmer cannot go to the town to reach the markets for the dis- 

 posal of his produce. 



" Would you have a case still more striking 1 This summer I made a 

 hurried tour through the south-eastern department. A mountain top 

 caught my view. All the northern part of it was covered with a rich turf 

 and trees ; the southern portion, denuded, presented only a shapeless mass 

 of rocks. The soil of it had disappeared. Low walls marked the division 

 of the two properties. Alas.! there was no need for this ; it was sufficiently 

 defined by the contrast of a rich vegetation with a soil of stones. I made 

 inquiry, and I learned that the northern portion belonged to an intelligent 

 proprietor, who had carefully conserved the turf and the trees, the heritage 

 descending to him from his fathers. The southern part was a communal 

 property. The inhabitants of the commune had partitioned it amongst 

 themselves, and having cut down the trees, they had passed the ploughshare 

 through the turf and sown it with rye. The snows and the rains had come, 

 and the earth, little by little, had rolled down into the valley ; ten years 

 had sufficed to carry off all, and to leave there the rock alone. The com- 

 munal property is now unproductive ; the rest of the mountain crest has, 

 on the contrary, acquired a considerable increase in value. The intelligent 

 proprietor has enriched himself; the commune has impoverished itself. All 

 the inhabitants have had was the delight to reap for some years a little 

 barley. To-day they no longer reap anything, and they find themselves 

 in misery. 



" If I demand of history what she has to tell, I learn that for one hun- 

 dred and fifty years the G^vandau was covered with forests, and the 

 population rose to a hundred and fifty thousand souls. I do not know 

 the result of any actual census, but what I do know is, that from 1850 to 

 1860 Lozfere lost one thousand souls a-year. If one takes into account the 

 increase of the population of France, which in the year 1800 reckoned only 

 18 millions of inhabitants, but counts to-day 36 millions, Lozfere ought to 

 have more than 300,000 souls! The earth Tseing impoverished, the crops 

 fail, the cattle become more sparse, the soil no longer supports man, and 

 man expatriates himself ; in this way the depopulation goes on increasing, 



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