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.