Reboisement Work. 205 
wholesome restrictions vanished ; inconsiderate exploita- 
tion by the farmers began and the damage came so 
rapidly that in less than ten years after the beginning 
of freedom, the effect was felt. Within three years 
(1792) the first complaints of the result of unrestricted 
cutting were heard, and by 1803 they were quite general. 
The brooks had changed to torrents, inundating the 
plains, tearing away fertile lands or silting them over 
with the debris carried down from the mountains. Yet 
in spite of these early warnings and the theoretical dis- 
cussions by such men as Boussingault, Becquerel and 
others, the destructive work by axe, fire and over-pastur- 
ing progressed until about 800,000 acres of tillable 
land had been rendered more or less useless, and the pop- 
ulation of 18 departments had been impoverished or 
reduced in number by emigration. 
The first work of recovery was tentatively begun in 
1843, but the political events following did not promote 
its extension, until in 1860 a special law charged the 
Forest Department with the mission of extinguishing the 
torrents. There were recognized two categories of work, 
the one, considered of general public interest being des- 
ignated as obligatory, the other with less immediate need 
being facultative ; the territories devastated by each river 
and its affiuents on which the work of recovery was to 
be executed being known as perimeters. In the obliga- 
tory perimeters private lands were to be acquired by the 
state by process of expropriation, the communal proper- 
ties were to be only for a time occupied by the state 
and after the achievement of the recovery were to be 
restituted on payment of the expense of the work, or else 
the corporation could get rid of the debt by ceding one- 
half of its property to the state. 
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