ILLUSTRATED GUIDE. 19 



SECOND PAET. 



EESTOBATION OF THE FORESTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



After having shown, in the preceding chapters, that 

 it is the duty of the state and of all our citizens to watch 

 over the preservation of the forests, I proceed in my 

 endeavour to prove that their restoration is a no less 

 important work. If a large part of the public domain is 

 still covered with forests, which are as yet almost intact, 

 another part, hardly less extensive, presents to the 

 gazer nothing more than a few clumps of trees half- 

 destroyed by one cause or another; strips of wood 

 gnawed by the flames ; whole townships of land unfit 

 for cultivation almost entirely cleared by the axe, and 

 which, in no long time, will become absolutely of no 

 value to the public. 



The settlements in the neighbourhood of these 

 places are threatened with a scarcity of lumber and 

 firewood ; and the scarcity is not very distant. In a few 

 years, they will find themselves in the same position as 

 the entirely cleared parts of the Dominion. In fact, it is 

 ackifowledged that a wood half cleared, and left to its 

 own devices, is devoted to destruction. On the slopes of 

 the mountains, the rains carry ofi" the soil from the 

 dealings, leaving nothing but the bare rock. The 

 earth is washed away, and gradually borne oiF, leaving 

 the ?:oots of the nearest trees naked, and their subsequent 

 destxTiction is not long delayed. In places ravaged by 

 the flames, the trunks of the half-burnt trees soon rot ,* 



