STAND OF 
MARITIME PINE 
LACANAU-OCEAN, FRANCE, 
TURPENTINE FACES THAT HAVE 
BEEN WORKED FOR YEARS 
NEAR 
SHOWING 
there will be a material reduction in the 
quantity of water that has to be controlled 
in the torrent beds, and with increasing vol- 
ume, the torrents grow in power. 
Necessarily forests that are formed by 
such afforestation are essentially of the 
“protection forest” type, and are not to be 
considered from the viewpoint of commercial 
utilization for timber. But that they serve 
an important economic end and are of value 
to the nation is a fact that is absolutely self 
evident. 
WHY REBOISEMENT WORK 
SHOULD INTEREST AMERICANS 
The bearing of all this French work of tor- 
rent control on our forest problems in the 
United States is more direct than may at 
first be apparent. Every reader of the LumBER 
Woritp REVIEW will recall that the basic argu- 
ment used in the creation of the national for- 
ests in the southern Appalachians was the ef- 
fect that preserving a forest cover on these 
mountains had upon the navigability of the 
(58) 
streams that rise on their slopes. Anyone 
who has seen how rapidly erosion goes on in 
that section of the United States, once the cov- 
er of vegetation has been removed, is not in- 
clined to question the wisdom of the legisla- 
tion that was then enacted, or of that which 
has followed since in providing additional ap- 
propriations. But there are other sections 
of the country where similar provisions might 
well be, put in force. France has had to 
work for a century to remedy the evils that 
resulted from lack of thought for the future. 
Of the many lessons Americans can learn 
from European forest history that of, the 
control of torrential streams is not the least. 
THE PREVENTION 
OF AVALANCHES 
The second type of protection forest work 
in the Alps, both in France and in Switzer- 
land, is the prevention of avalanches. In the 
United States this subject is of course of less 
importance than is stream control, but never- 
theless it may be recalled that not so many 
years ago there occurred in one of the north- 
western states a dramatic example of this 
form of damage, when a transcontinental 
train was overwhelmed, with considerable 
loss of life, by an avalanche that came down 
from a mountain side above the track that 
had shortly before been clean-cut. The details 
are given in a circular of the U. S. Forest 
Service. 
In avalanche control, as in the case of tor- 
rents, the idea is to check the trouble at the 
source. This means that what precautions 
are taken must be where the avalanches start, 
that is; near the top of the steep slopes. If 
one desires to visit these localities it behooves 
him to have stout legs and good wind. But if 
he is a lover of nature, he will be well repaid 
for his climb by the wonderful views of the 
surrounding mountains that he gets as he 
stops to catch his breath. 
The avalanche proper is a great snow-slide. 
In the heavy storms of the winter great mass- 
es of snow accumulate -at the base of the 
sharp peaks and high ridges that catch the 
full force of the wind. As the warmer 
weather begins to make itself felt in early 
spring, portions of these snow fields start to 
slide. It does not take much to set a ball 
rolling. Down the steep slope it goes, gath- 
ering force and momentum as it travels. Soon 
it develops into a true avalanche, that rips 
out everything in its path and on reaching 
the valley covers up and destroys whatever 
there may be in its way. 
It may be asked why people continue to 
live and build in localities that are subject 
to such danger. The same question can be 
asked of those who live below the flood line 
along any of our own great rivers. Conveni- 
ence and business consideration outweigh the 
memory of former disasters—until the next 
time. But with avalanches it is possible in 
many places to take precautions that afford 
reasonable safety. 
