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.