Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/401

 FORESTS— AGRICULTURE. 823 their |)a8turo8, sometimes also to protect themselves from the wild beasts, the Arab shepherds tire the dry herbage without taking the necessary precautions to limit the action of the flames. Hence, when the wind blows, the woods are kindled, and the conflagration spreads far and wide. In the month of August, 1865, a vast sheet of flame, fomented b}' the sirocco, couKumed in five days most of the forest zone stretching for a breadth of from 25 to 50 miles over the Bona uplands. A space of over 250,000 acres was laid waste on this occasion. In 1881 the forests about Bougie were similarly ravaged, and in 1885 Oranm lost the finest remains of its old forests. To prevent the recurrence of such disasters the severe measure has been taken to hold the whole tribe responsible in whose district fires break out, and confiscate their lands. But this barbarous process is useless to prevent the evil, because the real culprit generally belongs to a different community from that where the fire breaks out. A more efficacious remedy will be found in the syste- matic efforts now being made to replant the wasted lands. If the plans elaborated by the Government in 1885 are carried out, several tracts, comprising altogether about 270,000 acres, will again be clothed with timber at an outlay of under £700,000. The new settlers also find themselves obliged to plant as well as sow. Every village and hamlet has now its clump of trees, and on the plains the farmsteads are indicated at a distance by clusters of eucalyptus and other large trees. Many Algerian villages already possess avenues as fine as those of the towns in the mother country. In some places these plantations are necessary to dry up the fever-breathing swamps and render the district inhabitable. Thus Bufarik, where " the atmosphere poisoned the very birds of passage," has been rendered healthy, and the whole of the Mitija Valley covered with gardens and orchards. Nursery- grounds have been established at intervals along the railway routes and about the stations, and in 1884 as many as 470,000 trees were counted on the Algiers-Oran line. Of the exotics introduced by Europeans, the most widespread is the eucalyptus, of which over a hundred varieties have made their appearance since the first speci- men was planted at Hararaa in 1861. In the Garden of Acclimatisation at Algiers as many as 4,500 foreign species are now flourishing. No other Mediterranean region is more suited for the production of olive-oil ; but, except in EabyHa and some parts of the province of Constantine, the olive groves are neglected, and yield only an indiflferent oil, used in Marseilles in the preparation of soap. The table oils consumed in Algeria are nearly all imported from France. On the eastern plateaux, and even in the valleys of the Jebel Aures, where the remains have been found oi so many Roman oil-presses, nothing is now seen beyond a few clusters of olive-trees, which, however, yield, with those of the Bougie district, the most highly esteemed oil in the whole of North Africa. In the northern regions the most widely diffused fruit-tree is the fig, which thrives well in stony places, and which in Kabylia is almost as useful as is the date on the verge of the desert. But here a still more useful plant is the cork-tree, the bark of which, although less prized than that of Catalonia, fonns an important article of export. If properly administered, the cork forests of Algeria should yield