272 



RECENT AFFORESTATION WORK IN FRANCE. [Dec. 189.1 



francs per hectare, clear of all working expenses. In 1879, a 

 further and more extensive clearing was made, the product of 

 which, 142 steres, sold for 687 francs per hectare. After that 

 there remained standing about 100 steres per hectare, represented 

 principally by clean grown oak stems of 12 metres in height. 

 The result then was a mean product of eight steres of wood per 

 hectare annually, derived from land which was before practically 

 worthless. 



If on the south-western coast of France the efforts of the Forest 

 Department are thus vigorously called into action to resist the 

 encroachment of the dunes, they are no less imperatively 

 demanded, and no less heartily responded to, in the extreme 

 south and south-west of her borders, to resist the ravages caused 

 by floods pouring down on the fertile valleys and plains which 

 underlie the denuded slopes of the Pyrenees and of the Alps. 

 In some sort, indeed, these two undertakings, both of admitted 

 and pressing necessity, but costly in their inception, and in the 

 early stages of a necessarily unremunerative character, clashed 

 with each other. Thus, the law of I860, enjoining the afforesta- 

 tion of the mountains, which was called into operation by the 

 disastrous inundations of 1856, had the misfortune to appear at 

 the same time as the law ordaining the reclamation of the soil in 

 the Landes and Gironde, and consequently remained for some 

 time a dead letter. But the incessantly recurring floods, and 

 the growing depopulation of the parts of the country affected by 

 them, made the resumption of the question not a matter of choice, 

 but of urgent necessity. It was estimated that one flood of the 

 Herault and its affluents — a river whose declivity is said to be 

 a 100 times more steep than that of the Rhone — caused damage 

 to the quality of tlje wine yielded by the submerged vineyards 

 to the extent of no less than 15,000,000 of francs (6O(),O0OL). 

 Statistics at the same time proved that the population had 

 decreased in the Basses Alpes and Hautes Alpes alone by 47,335 

 persons in 45 years, so that the number of inhabitants in the latter 

 per square kilometre was only 18, while the average of the whole 

 of France was 78 per square kilometre. It was, as M. Surell 

 described it, " une oeuvre de salut, une question d'etre ou de 

 n'etre pas." 



The law of 4th April 1882 was then passed, which gave 

 powers for the immediate taking up first, of preventive 

 measures, and, second, of curative measures, with powers 

 of coercion. For the mountaineers — here, as elsewhere, the 

 great offenders — did not hesitate, by the unrestrained grazing 

 of their goats, to destroy wood worth 100 francs for the 

 sake of 50 centimes worth of cheese. And the carrying 

 out of this law was confided solely to the Forest Depart- 

 m.ent, and not, as might have been expected, to the Depart- 

 ment of Public Works. The work is being carried out in 31 

 departements, embracing nearly two-fifths of the soil of France, 

 on which already no less than 138,762 hectares have been, or are 

 being, reafibrested since the passing of the law. The regulation 



