The most noted work of the forest administration, and one for which it
deserves high credit, has been that of the reclamation of waste lands,
of which, in 1879, it was estimated there were still 20,000,000 acres
in extent. Especially the “reboisement” work in the Alpine districts, as
a result of the law of 1882, has become celebrated.
The movement for recovery of waste lands dates from the beginning of the
19th century, and to-day reforestation by state, communal and private
effort encouraged by legislative acts during the last sixty years, has
restored well-nigh more than 3,000,000 acres of ground which had been
lost to forest production.
There are four definite regions of large extent in which systematic
effort in this direction has been made, namely, the sand dunes of
Gascony and the Landes of Southwestern France; the sandy plains of La
Sologne; the limestone wastes of Champagne; and the mountain slopes in
the Vosges and Jura-Alps.
* * * * *
The sand dunes on the coast of France comprise around 350,000 acres;
those on the coast of Gascony in Southwest France alone have an extent
of nearly 250,000 acres, these being the most important and having for a
long time endangered the adjoining pastures and fields. It seems that
the land occupied by dunes was originally forested, and that these were
created by deforestation.
As early as 1717, successful attempts at reforestation were made by the
inhabitants of _La Teste_, and from that time on sporadically small
plantings came into existence. But the inauguration of systematic
reforestation was begun only after a notable report by _Brémontier_,
who, in 1786, secured, as chief engineer of the department of Bordeaux,
a sum of $10,000 to be employed in ascertaining the possibilities of
draining the Landes by means of a canal, and of fixing the dunes. As a
result of this beginning, the method for their recovery having been, by
1793, experimentally determined by Brémontier, 275,000 acres of moving
sand have been fixed during the last century. The revolutionary
government, in 1799, created a Commission of Dunes, of which Brémontier
was made president, and annual appropriation of $10,000 was made, later
(in 1808) increased to $15,000. In 1817, the work was transferred to the
_Administration des Ponts et Chaussées_. The appropriations were
increased until, in 1854, they reached $100,000 a year, and in 1865, the
work being nearly finished, the dunes were handed over to the forest
administration. There being still about 20,000 acres to be recovered,
this was achieved in 1865, when 200,000 acres had been reforested at an
expense of about $2,000,000, and an additional expense of $700,000 to
organize the newly formed pine forests--_Pinus maritima_ was entirely
used. These, at present, with their resinous products and wood are
furnishing valuable material. An unfortunate policy of ceding some of
these forest areas to private and communal owners, who claimed them as
of ancient right, and also of sales was inaugurated just as the planting
was finished, so that at present only 125,000 acres remain in the hands
of the state. The returns from the sales, however, reimbursed the cost
of the reboisement in excess by $140,000, so that the state really
acquired for nothing, a property, now estimated to be worth
$10,000,000.
A similar plantation on moving sands, of 35,000 acres, is found north of
this tract.
To the eastward of this region of dunes stretch the so-called _Landes_,
a territory triangular in shape, containing 2,000,000 acres of shifting
sands and marshes, on which a poor population of shepherds (on stilts)
used to eke out a living. In 1873, _Chambrelent_, an engineer of the
administration of bridges and roads (_administration des ponts et
chaussées_), conceived the idea of improving this section by
reforestation, and at his own expense recovered some 1,200 acres in the
worst marsh by ditching and planting. The success of this plantation
invited imitators, and, by 1855, the reforested area had grown to 50,000
acres. This led, in 1857, to the passage of a law ordering forestation
of the parts of the land owned by the state as well as by the
communities, the state at the same time undertaking the expense of
building a system of roads and making the plans for forestation free of
charge. The communities were allowed to sell a part of the reclaimed
land in order to recover the expense, and sold some 470,000 acres for
2.7 million dollars, of which less than $300,000 were used to forest the
250,000 acres belonging to them. From 1850 to 1892, private owners
imitating the government and communal work, altogether nearly 1,750,000
acres were covered with pine forest at a cost of $4.00 to $5.00 per
acre, or, including the building of roads, for a total expenditure of
around $10,000,000. In 1877, the value of the then recovered area was
estimated at over $40,000,000, this figure being arrived at by
calculating the possible net revenues of a pinery under a 75 years
rotation, which was figured at $2.50 per acre, with a production of 51
cubic feet per acre and 200 quarts of resin (at $3). An estimate of
recent date places the value of the recovered area at $100,000,000.
* * * * *
Centrally located between the valleys of the Loire and the Cher, near
Orleans, lies the region of _La Sologne_, a sandy, poorly drained plain
upon an impenetrable calcareous sub-soil giving rise to stagnant waters;
this region too had been originally densely wooded, and was described as
a paradise in early times; but from the beginning of the 17th century to
the end of the 18th it was deforested, making it an unhealthy, useless
waste. By 1787, 1,250,000 acres of this territory had become absolutely
abandoned.
About the middle of the 19th century, a number of influential citizens
constituted themselves a committee to begin its work of recovery, the
Director General of Forests being authorized to assume the presidency of
that committee. As a result, a canal 25 miles in length and 350 miles of
road were built, and some 200,000 acres, all non-agricultural lands,
were sowed and planted with Maritime and Scotch Pine, the state
furnishing assistance through the forest service and otherwise. A
set-back occurred during the severe winter of 1879, frost killing many
of the younger plantations, which led to the substitution of the hardier
Scotch Pine for the Maritime Pine in the plantings. The cost per acre
set out with about 3,500 two-year old seedlings amounted to $5.00. An
estimate of the value of these plantations places it at, not less than
$18,000,000, so that lands which 50 years ago, could hardly be sold for
$4.00 per acre, now bring over $3.00 as an annual revenue.
* * * * *
In the province of _Champagne_, South of Rheims, a plain of arid
lime-stone wastes of an extent which in the 18th century had reached
1,750,000 acres is found. About 1807, the movement for the recovery of
these wastes began; first in a small way, gaining strength by 1830 after
some sporadic experiments had shown the possibility of reforestation,
and to-day over 200,000 acres of coniferous forest (mainly Austrian and
Scotch Pine), largely planted by private incentive, are in existence,
the better acres being farmed. It is interesting to note that land which
50 years ago was often sold without measurement by distance, “as far as
the cry would carry,” and rarely for more than $4.00 per acre, is to-day
worth over $40.00 at a cost for planting of less than $25.00. The
stumpage value of a thirty years’ growth is figured at from $50 to $100,
the total forest area is valued at $10,000,000, with net revenue from
the 200,000 acres at $2.00 per acre.
* * * * *
France is unfortunate in having within her territory, although so little
mountainous, the largest proportion of the area in Europe liable to
torrential action. Not less than 1,462 brooks and mountain streams have
been counted as dangerous waters in the Alps, the Cevennes, and the
Pyrenees mountains; or two-thirds of the torrents of Europe. An area
nearly 1,000,000 acres in extent, of mountain slopes, is exposed to the
ravages of these waters by erosion.
Here the most forcible demonstration of the value of a forest cover in
protecting watersheds was furnished by the results of the extensive
forest destruction and devastation which took place especially during
and following the years of the Revolution.
Long ago, in the 16th century, the local parliaments had enacted decrees
against clearing in the mountains, with severe fines, confiscation and
even corporal punishment, and these restrictions had been generally
effective; but during the Revolutionary period all these wholesome
restrictions vanished; inconsiderate exploitation 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 discussions by such men as
Boussingault, Becquerel and others, the destructive work by axe, fire
and over-pasturing progressed until about 8,000,000 acres of tillable
land had been rendered more or less useless, and the population of 18
departments had been impoverished or reduced in number by emigration.
A young engineer, _Surell_, was the first to study the possibility of
coping with the evil and proved in his _Etude sur les torrents_, in
1841, its relation to forest cover, and the need of attacking it at the
sources. 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 designated as
obligatory, the other with less immediate need being facultative; the
territories devastated by each river and its affluents on which the work
of recovery was to be executed were known as perimeters. In the
obligatory perimeters, private lands were to be acquired by the state by
process of expropriation, the communal properties 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.
In the facultative perimeters, the state was simply to assist in the
work of recovery by gratuitous distribution of seeds and plants, or even
by money subventions in some cases. It appeared hard that the poor
mountaineers should have to bear all the expense of the extinction of
the torrents, and much complaint was heard. In response to these
complaints, in 1864, a law was passed allowing the substitution of
sodding instead of forest planting for at least part of the perimeters,
with a view of securing pastures; but this method seems not to have been
successful and was mostly not employed.
Finally, by the reboisement law of 1882, the complaints of the
mountaineers were properly taken care of by placing the entire expense
of the reboisement work on the state. The attitude of the mountaineers,
which was at first hostile, due to the restriction of the pasture, has
been overcome by the beneficial results of the work, and now the most
hostile are ready to offer gratuitously their territory to the Forest
Department. Wherever necessary the state has bought territory, and from
year to year has increased its holdings, and continues to acquire land
at the rate of 25,000 to 30,000 acres per year, the budget of 1902, for
instance, containing $1,000,000 for this purpose; that of 1911, only
$40,000.
Altogether the state had, up to 1900, acquired 400,000 acres, of which
218,000 have been planted, and it is estimated that about 430,000 acres
more will have to be acquired. The total expense, outside of subventions
to communities and private owners, up to 1900 has been over $13,000,000,
of which somewhat over $5,000,000 was expended for purchases, it is
estimated that round $25 to $30 million more will be needed to complete
the work. Of the 1,462 torrents there were in 1893, 163 entirely
controlled, and 654 begun to be “cured.” Among the former, there were 31
which 50 years ago were considered by engineers incurable. It is
estimated that, with the expenditure of $600,000 per annum, the work may
be finished by 1945. The names of Matthieu and Demontzey, especially the
latter, are indelibly connected with this great work.
Lately, however, Briot in his classical work _Les Alpes françaises_
criticizes severely as improperly extravagant the large expenditures in
places where the result does not warrant them, and proclaims as illusory
some of the methods adopted.