CHAPTER X.

NATURAL HISTORY AND GENERAL CULTURE OF THE MARITIME PINE IN FRANCE.

SECT. I.-Commendation bestowed on the Maritime Pine.

THE success which has followed the endeavours of M. Bremontier to arrest and utilise the dunes and sand-drifts of the landes of Gascony, by planting them with the pinus maritima, has led to the name of this pine being closely associated with thoughts of these landes, not only there, but in lands far remote, in which attention has been given to the subject.

The growth of the maritime pine in France is not confined to Gascony, but is carried out elsewhere as a temporary application of sylviculture to prepare the soil for agriculture, or for the introduction of trees better adapted to the climate, or to the wants of the inhabitants of the country adjacent, or more remote. In some of the districts in which this is done the trees do not attain so great an age and size as they do on the landes of the Gironde and adjacent dunes. This is the case on La Sologne, in the district of the Loire and the Cher, where they generally have to be felled after a growth of twenty years, at which age the trees may supply supports for telegraphic wires, and wood which may be applied to similar uses; but it is chiefly as firewood that the produce can command a sale, and in such districts special attention has been given to the conversion of these products into fuel.

M. Boitel says of the maritime pine: "The rapid growth of this evergreen tree has made it a favourite with foresters. What other tree becomes productive at seven or eight years of age, and even then exhibits a strength and beauty which completely changes the aspect of the country by changing desert ground into a forest!

"Add to these advantages that it thrives in light poor soil unfit for any other purpose, and we can easily comprehend how much it is prized.

"The forester of the Landes or of Sologne exhibits with pride heaths turned into forests by the labour of his hands. So a desert

inhabited by a few wretched sheep has succeeded an immense timber forest, supplying in abundance timber, firewood, and resinous substances.

"Many are the villages which owe their foundation to the introduction of the maritime pine, before which there was a dearth of timber and of firewood for baking the bricks and tiles, which are indispensable for building purposes in a country devoid of means of transport.

"I cannot enumerate here all the benefits to mankind rendered by this tree; let it suffice to briefly notice some of the chief uses of the tree.

"Immense sandy plains in Gascony, Orléanais, Touraine, and Maine have become profitable through its culture.

"Certain cantons, formerly desert and uninhabited, owe their improvement to the maritime pine, which furnishes materials indispensable for houses and workshops; its timber and resin are useful for domestic purposes; the baker needs firewood, the painter turpentine and varnish, and the sailor tar for ropes, timber and pitch for his vessels and boats; and by this tree all these are supplied.

"On the sea-shore the growth of the Bordeaux pine is the only means of arresting the invasion of the dunes, which, like an ocean of sand with moving waves, lays waste the fields and carries misery and desolation into important populous centres.

"Its protecting shelter from the caustic action of the salt winds permits cultivation to be carried on in spots where this would otherwise be impossible, and it withstands tempests better than any other

tree.

"The maritime pine is met with all over France; in fertile ground where it would be the reverse of profitable, it occupies an important place in landscape gardening.

"To sum up, in cleared land it appears as the first symptom of civilisation and progress, and is connected with one of the most wonderful discoveries of the age, for with two of its relatives it shares the privilege of supporting the wires, which in a second convey human thought to the ends of the earth."

In another connection he writes thus on the same theme:

"The maritime pine is at home in Gascony, there it attains the largest size, and, provided that sheep are absent, it] multiplies indefinitely when once introduced. Sologne does not suit it nearly so well, it suffers from the inclemency of the climate and the badness

of the soil. Without culture the pine would never have formed forests in that district, and it may be asserted that the plantation would soon disappear if they were not kept up artificially. This tree, which lives for a hundred years in the south of France, often in Sologne, reaches maturity at 25 or 30 years. This great difference naturally involves important modifications of its culture and exploitation.

"The inhabitant of the Landes who can count on the longevity of his pines, expects them to produce resin and timber, firewood being only a secondary consideration.

"The Solognese, on the contrary, knowing that his pines are rarely large enough for timber, or to be subjected to regular gemmage, values them chiefly as firewood, Cotrets bourrées, charcoal, and charcoal powder are the most important productions in Sologne. Only here and there do some woods situated in deep moist soil furnish trees fit for the carpenter.

"Of late years, quantities of telegraph poles are supplied by Sologne, for this purpose trees are required about the age of 20 or 25 years.

"Although wood that has not been tapped appears to last a shorter time under water, not long ago some of the finest trees in Sologne were selected to form piles as the basis of a new bridge lately built at Mayenne.

"I am led to conclude, from some recent experiments, that it would seem to be advantageous to tap the pines in Sologne, especially those which are to be felled.

"Gemmage should be practised in Sologne with prudence and circumspection. We must remember that the tree so far north generally lacks strength and vigour.

"Too great a gemmage practised on feeble, sickly trees would certainly shorten their lives, and a loss of timber would result, for which the resin obtained would not be compensation.

Only trees on the point of being felled should be subjected to the process. As to others, they should be let alone to grow before

it is attempted.

"So soon as the trees appear strong enough to support the operation they should be carefully operated on, only one incision made on each tree, and this incision a small one, this being essential to the health of the tree."

M. Samanos, in the introduction to his Traité de la Culture du Pin Maritime, says: "There has long been realised in the district of our

T

landes the importance of creating a plantation of the maritime pine; and yet, for all that, it may be said that but a few years separate us from the time when the Landes of Gascony, veritable French Savannahs, presented to the eye of the saddened traveller only a picture of desolation and of death. Far as his eye could reach he could see only heart-sickening monotony and gloom; and it seemed to him as if on this bare and naked land sterile Nature had cast her heavy curse.

"While the whole of France elsewhere expanded herself under the rays of progress, the Landes remained there-always uncultivated and unproductive-always immersed in their unmeasured sadnessgiving shade in the brilliant picture of the fruitful conquests of civilisation, and presenting to all men the great and gruesome spectacle of a fatal neglect; for, as Viscount Izarn-Freissinet remarks, in his Coup d'œil sur les Landes de Gascogne-' parce que tout y était à faire, rien n'y a été fait.' Because everything in connection with it had to be done-nothing at all in connection with it has been done.

"Such neglect and such abandonment of the land could not last always. There came at length the day when societies were formed for the clearing and cultivation of these landes. But those who took the direction of the measures to be adopted were mainly imbued with notions essentially and exclusively agricultural. They wished to establish on a grand scale the culture of vegetables which the geological conditions of our sand-wastes could not support. They were foiled. Advancing with giant steps they landed themselves the more precipitately in ruin, and they were forced to stop, buried as they were under the weight of failure, so much the more overwhelming that it was unexpected.

"Behold then once more our landes abandoned and uncultivated and alone in their immensity; they seemed to be for the future doomed to everlasting sterility.

"But if there had been a want of success it was the fault of man, not of the landes. To change all that, it was only necessary to act more wisely. This has been done, and now it has come about that the four hundred thousand hectares of these desolate landes have become four hundred thousand hectares of young and vigorous forests. Almost everywhere the plough has produced its furrows, and the hand of man has stocked these savage deserts with maritime pines, which will become for the country a fruitful source of wealth, and supply some day the wants of the whole of France.

Writings on the maritime pine were for a time quite the rage.

Societies being formed for the clearing and sowing of the landes it was needful to give instructions to the shareholders or capitalists of these companies, and show to them the great advantages which they might derive from this-to make palpable to them the supposition which might engage them to lay out on uncultivated and arid lands money, of which the interest would be invested on their hopeful promises to remove from their minds the unwarranted prejudices which seemed to exist against our landes, and to prevent their receiving the attention they deserved; and it was necessary, in fine, for the success of the enterprises, that by descriptions, always exaggerated, our country should be shown to be another Louisiana, which should be exploited by another law. And this is what our economists have done. The question relating to the improvement of our landes was almost always treated of by men to whom a creative imagination supplemented the lowest modicum of knowledge in regard to the forest culture of our maritime pine; and these, seizing with itching hand the pen dipped in vapouring exaggerations, extolled the sterile plains which they described, and, by aid of subtile logic, they insinuated into the ideas of their readers ideas which had only for the greater part of the time absurd and incoherent foundations. With them our maritime pine was the veritable tree bearing apples of gold."

To expose the fallaciousness of these writings he cites some passages, for which, says he, common sense alone may supply pitiless refutations. Delamarre thus writes (Traité de la culture des pins à grandes dimensions; page 306; third edition): "The culture of pines supplies the means of acquiring wealth. As the proprietor of uncultivated grounds, a hundred Parisian arpents for example (corresponding to thirty-four hectares) in extent, more or less unfit for every other crop, may, by a moderate advance of two or three thousand francs, and such attention as should be a work of pleasure, may flatter himself, not only to be reimbursed the outlay, capital, and interest in some ten, twelve, or fifteen years, but of obtaining from it from the first pretty considerable profits, and ultimately, in some fifty or sixty years from the commencement of the enterprise, a wealth to be reckoned by millions for himself, and perhaps as much for those whom, from the very nature of the undertaking, he will find he has associated with himself in the magnificent and honourable benefit which he has given; for even in localities in which the price of wood does not exceed twenty sous per cubic foot, his personal benefit should exceed fifteen hundred thousand francs."