He
looked over the Landes and found it to be nothing more than a waste of
shifting sand. Rescued from the sea by a mere freak of nature, it might,
for all practical purposes, have been much more usefully employed if
covered a few fathoms deep with salt water. To M. Bremontier came the
happy idea of planting the waste land with fir trees. Nothing else
would grow, the fir tree might. And it did. To-day the vast extent of
the Landes is almost entirely covered with dark forests in perpetual
verdure.

These have transformed the district, adding not only to the improvement
of its sanitary condition, but creating a new source of wealth. Out of
the boundless vistas of fir trees there ever flows a constant stream of
resin, which brings in large revenues. Passing through the forest by
the railway line from La Mothe to Arcachon, one sees every tree marked
with a deep cut. It looks as if the woodman had been about, picking out
trees ready for the axe, and had come to the conclusion that they might
be cut down _en bloc_. But these marks are indications of the process
of milking the forests. It is a very simple affair, to which mankind
contributes a mere trifle. In order to get at the resin a piece of bark
is cut off from each tree. Out of the wound the resin flows, falling
into a hole dug in the ground at the roots. When this is full it is
emptied into cans and carried off to the big reservoir: when one wound
in the tree is healed another is cut above it, and so the tree is
finally drained.

Besides this revenue from resin immense sums are obtained from the sale
of timber; and thus the Landes, which a hundred years ago seemed to be
an inconvenient freak of nature afflicting complaining France, has been
turned into a money-yielding department.

The firs which fringe the seacoast by the long strip of land that lies
between the mouth of the Gironde and the town of Bayonne have much to
do with the prosperity of Arcachon. The salt lake, with its little
cluster of fishermen's cottages, lies within a couple of hours'
journey by rail from Bordeaux, a toiling, prosperous place, which,
seated on the broad Garonne, longed for the sea. Some one discovered
that there was excellent bathing at Arcachon, the bed of the salt
lake sloping gently upwards in smooth and level sands. Then the doctors
took note of the beneficial effects of the fir trees which environed
the place. The aromatic scent they distilled was declared to be good
for weak chest