71 



RECOVERY OF WASHED SOILS. 



Just as deforestation of hillsides and hilltops is the first cause for 

 inducing erosive action, so is reforestation the most effective means 

 in curing the evil. This has been demonstrated in France, where the 

 Government and the farmers together have spent, during the last 

 thirty years, over £40,000,000 and expect to expend three or four 

 times that amount to reforest 1,000,000 acres of denuded mountain 

 sides, the soil and debris from which has been carried by the torrents 

 of water into the plain, covering over 8,000,000 acres of fertile ground 

 and making it useless for agriculture. Sodding for pasture has been 

 found mostly less effective and on the steeper slopes entirely ineffective. 



Wherever the ground in the hill country is not fit for agricultural 

 use it should be set and kept in forest, not only to make it produoe a 

 timber crop, but also to prevent the eroiion which finally becomes 

 dangerous to the lower valley lands. Wherever agriculture is possi- 

 ble and profitable there should be such a distribution of forest, pas- 

 ture, and field as will secure the great st immunity from erosive and 

 torrential action of the waters. The forest should occupy all hilltops 

 which, as a rule, have too tbin a soil to allow profitable agricultural 

 use ; it should be kept growing on the steeper slopes where the water 

 acquires the greatest momentum and the loosening of the soil by the 

 plough furnishes a most favourable condition for erosive aotion ; it 

 should be placed on all rocky, uneven, agriculturally useless spots, be- 

 cause it will produce useful material even on such unfavourable situa- 

 tions, and, finally, forest belts should be maintained on long slopes al- 

 ternately with fields and pastures, running along the brow of the slope 

 of widths and at distances proportionate to the character of the land 

 and the angle of the slope- -on the steeper slopes oloser together, on 

 the gentler slopes further apart. These belts, acting as a barrier to 

 break the force of the water, will prevent an undue accumulation of 

 surface waters and will protect to a considerable degree the lower 

 fields from washing. Farmers, therefore, living in the eroded hill 

 country should start upon the work of reforestation with a well con- 

 ceived plan. They should determine beforehand which parts ought to 

 be in forest, and which they may reasonably expect to adapt again to 

 agricultural uses. They should understand that they must begin this 

 work at the origin of the evil, at the very tops of the hills where the 

 water begins to gather and acquire its force, and gradually proceed 

 with their work down to the lower levels. 



PREPARATION FOR PLANTING FORESTS, 



Although cultivation of the soil for tree planting in the manner 

 practised for field crops is advantageous to the young plants for the 

 first few years of their life, it is by no means necessary, and rough, 

 broken and stony ground, which could not be ploughed and prepared 

 for ordinary field crops can be readily planted in trees. If the ground 

 is in such a condition that it can be ploughed, this is deoidedly the best 

 method of preparing the land. The ploughing should in *U cases fol- 

 low the contour of the hill and be as deep as possible, in order to 

 allow as muoh water as possible to soak into the soil and so diminish 

 surface erosion and prevent the young trees being washed out. The 

 occasional gullies must be filled with brush and soil, or stones, rubble 

 and dirt. 



