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.