93 



away, leaving broad areas of naked rock, from which the water would at once sweep 

 down the valleys in sudden and destructive inundations. The autumn of 1868 is memor- 

 able on account of these floods. 



Public attention has, however, been thoroughly awakened, and active measures are 

 in progress to remedy, as far as may be, these evils. The cantons which have charge of 

 these operations have for some time, at great expense, been constructing works to control 

 the streams, and planting trees wherever practicable. 



I would here remark that this is a very difficult matter compared with what it might 



have been. It is easy to preserve a forest on a hill-side, but the soil once washed to the 



rock, it is another matter. I could point out places in Ontario where splendid forests 



stood, and yet might have stood, now for many miles 



' ' White rook and grey rock, 

 Barren and bare. " 



The matter is now in Switzerland taken into the hands of the national Government, 

 and the following article gives the idea : — 



" Art. XXII. — The Federal Union of Switzerland has the right of supervising struc- 

 tures for the protection of water courses, and of the forest police in mountain regions. 

 It will assist in protective structures for water courses, and in the planting of forests at 

 their sources. It will enact the requisite regulations for maintaining these works and 

 the forests now existing." 



Italy. 



Soon after the present Kingdom of Italy was established, a central forest school was 

 organized near Florence, under the direction of A. di Berenger, formerly in the Austrian 

 forest service of Venezia, and author of an excellent work on the history of forest manage- 

 ment in Italy. The school is located in the splendid silver fir forest of Vallombrosa. 

 We all remember 



" Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks, 

 In Vallombrosa." 



This is below the crest of the Appenines, on their western slope, about twenty miles 

 east of Florence. In winter it is transferred to a lower station at Paterno, in the region 

 of the olive. Italian forest literature of direct practical application is comparatively 

 modem, but of late the publications of the Ministry of Agriculture, to which sylviculture 

 is entrusted, contain much that is valuable. The two most important of these give the 

 statistics of forests and the forest law of Italy. There are over five million acres of com- 

 munal forests, over six million of private forests, and only half a million acres of State 

 forests. One-fifth of the land is in forest. This is scant enough, apparently, or the 

 nominal forests have been culled to depreciation, for we are told that-r— 



" Projects of a general forest law for the whole of Italy have been repeatedly sub- 

 mitted to the Italian Parliament. The evil effects of denudation have been severely felt 

 in many parts of the country, and the aim of these proposed legislative enactments has 

 hitherto been to guard against further mischief by determining beforehand which lands 

 shall, in the public interest, be clothed with forest or kept under forest, and then to place 

 the whole of. these lands under the supervision or control of the public forest officers 

 without distinction, whether they belonged to state, village, commune, or private persons. 

 From a report with which the Minister of Agriculture submitted the project of a general 



