396 CHARACTER AND EFFECT OF THE NEW MEASURES. 
interfere very materially with the rights of private domain, 
the almost entire unanimity with which they were adopted is 
proof of a very general popular conviction, that the protection 
and extension of the forests is a measure more likely than any 
other to check the violence, if not to prevent the recurrence, of 
destructive inundations. The law of July 28th, 1860, appropri¬ 
ated 10,000,000 francs, to be expended, at the rate of 1,000,000 
francs per year, in executing or aiding the replanting of woods. 
It is computed that this appropriation will secure the creation 
of new forest to the extent of about 250,000 acres, or one elev¬ 
enth part of the soil where the restoration of the forest is 
thought feasible and, at the same time, specially important as 
a security against the evils ascribed in a great measure to its 
destruction. 
The provisions of the laws in question are preventive rather 
than remedial; but some immediate effect may he expected to 
result from them, particularly if they are accompanied with 
certain other measures, the suggestion of which has been 
favorably received. The strong repugnance of the moun¬ 
taineers to the application of a system which deprives them 
of a part of their pasturage—for the absolute exclusion of 
domestic animals is indispensable to the maintenance of an 
existing forest and to the formation of a new—is the most 
formidable obstacle to the execution of the laws of 1859-’60. 
Jt is proposed to compensate this loss by a cheap system of 
irrigation of lower pasture grounds, consisting in little more 
than in running horizontal furrows along the hillsides, thus 
converting the scarp of the hills into a succession of small ter¬ 
races which, when once turfed over, are very permanent. 
Experience is said to have demonstrated that this simple pro¬ 
cess suffices to retain the water of rains, of snows, and of small 
springs and rivulets, long enough for the irrigation of the soil, 
thus increasing its product of herbage in a fivefold proportion, 
and that it partially checks the too rapid flow of surface water 
into the valleys, and, consequently, in some measure obviates 
one of the most prominent causes of inundations.* It is evi- 
* Troy, Etude sur le Reboisement des Montagues , §§ 6, 7 , 21. 
