POSITION AND PB0BPE0T8 OF THE BNTEEPRISE. 



327 



gives, after some years, appreciable products which it would be right to take 

 into account. These successive benefits will be considerable ; and they 

 would have no existence if it were arranged to create only forests, and 

 plantations of forest trees. 



" The expenditure of 8 or 10 millions may appear to be enormous ; but I 

 do not believe it to be out of proportion with the results. M. Surell has 

 demonstrated this most explicitly ; and I have nothing to add to what he 

 has said. But one may go a little further ; I am certain that in five years 

 the p6rim&tres, by their herbage and their wood, will yield revenues which, 

 added to the savings, and the benefits resulting from the transformation of 

 the rigime of the torrents and of the water-courses, will cover by far the 

 greater part of the expense of restoration." 



Thus far, M. Gentil. M. Cezanne adds, — " After such testimony it is not 

 left open to us to doubt that the operation is good, for it seems to satisfy 

 everybody — the Administration, the professional men employed, and the 

 populations." In another connection he remarks that — " The object and 

 design of the enterprise was not, what has been called for by some students 

 of forest science, to carry out reboisements everywhere, and to re-establish 

 the ancient forest domains of France ; but the enterprise was confined to a 

 measure to curb and master torrential rivers, and thus protect at once the 

 mountains which these were attacking, and the plains which they were 

 devastating by inundations. 



" The mountains in general, and in particular those of the High Alps, 

 are essentially pastoral lands ; flocks are the sole source of wealth for the 

 inhabitants — they are the life of the country ; the pasturage required to be 

 extended, not curtailed. Such were the views of M. Surell. And on the 

 same mountains, gazonnement has been carried out in some situations, and 

 reboisement or boisement in others. 



" The planting of woods promises a return at a period too remote to 

 allow of its being required of the existing generation, excepting in places in 

 which it is indispensable as a means of retaining the soil, and of allowing 

 the ulterior development of the turf; and the arrangements made by the 

 law of 1860 spread the work of reboisement over a period of somewhere 

 about 140 years." 



A reduced expenditure may, if not counteracted by an enlarged expendi- 

 ture, in more favourable, circumstances, necessitate a prolongation of time 

 for the completion of the enterprise. In every other respect the prospects 

 of the future are as bright as ever. 



