Abstract
THE opening paper in the Transactions of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society, 1901 (vol. xvi. part iii.) is by Mr. J. S. Gamble, C I.E., F.R.S., and gives a full account of the Forestry Exhibition in Paris in 1900, in the “Palais de Forets, de la Chasse et des Cueillettes,” the latter term practically meaning productions of various kinds, from baskets and fishing-rods to sponges and Russian caviare. The chief exhibit by the French Government was a series of models, photographs, pamphlets, &c, on the reclamation of mountain sides, including a large diorama representing a hill-side before—and several years after—reclamation. All these illustrate the magnificent work done by France in the last forty years, during which nearly 640 square miles of country have been reafforested at a cost of about two and a half million pounds. Mr. Gamble refers to the necessity of such work being undertaken in the Himalayas, where landslips due to forest denudation have wrought wholesale destruction. He instances hill-slopes which he once knew as covered with fine forests, but which are now bare and scored with landslips, while their gentle streams have been converted into torrents. The “sufficient for the day” policy of Indian administrators constantly neglects the work of preserving mountain forests, which is done seriously and systematically and with the best results-in France, Austria and Hungary. The possession of a world-wide empire should induce us also to undertake such an obvious duty. More has been done in India to fix shifting sands, chiefly by means of casuarina plantations along the Coromandel coast, here also following the great French work in Gascony, where 260 square miles have been reclaimed and planted with maritime pine. The Germans have also afforested nearly the whole North German coast with Pinus sylvestris.
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FISHER, W. Forestry . Nature 66, 283–284 (1902). https://doi.org/10.1038/066283a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/066283a0