THE MEETING OF NEW AND OLD WORLD LOGGING METHODS 



IN THE FIR FORESTS OF FRANCE 



BY LIEUT. W. C. LOWDERMILK, 20th ENGINEERS 



THE work of the Joth Engineers in l'"r;uice has already 

 been well described in American- Forestry. It is 

 intended, however, in this paper to set forth some 

 of the things of interest to an American forester 

 encountered in the tir forests of eastern France during 

 the progress of lumbering operations. Large cessions 

 were made to the American .\rmy in the fir forests of the 

 Besancon District, in northeastern I-'rance. Eleven Amer- 

 ican o])erations were set up in difTerent tracts in this 

 region and cut an aggregate of 43 million board feet of 

 timber, aside from quantities of piling, telephone poles, 

 camouflage stakes, wire entanglement pickets and fuel 



IllK A.MKKU A.\ .MKI'IIOI) (Jl' LOADING 



wood, up to the time of the armistice. These operations 

 extended from La Cluse, in the department of Ain, to 

 a point not far south of Ab.intbeliard. in the dei)artment 

 of Doubs. Several more operations were in the process 

 of development in still other timber tracts on November 

 II, i(ji8. 



In this region, esi)cciallv in the eastern halves of the 

 departments of Doubs and Jura, arc found ])roljably the 

 finest stands of silver fir (Abies j^ccliiiala) and Norway 

 spruce (Ficca excelsa) in France and even in lutrope. 

 These forests are on a par with the I'lack l-'orests of 

 Germany, where the silver lir attains exciOlenl devc'lop- 

 ment. 



The forest stands are composed loi- tlu' most part of 

 silver fir, with some Norway spruce, the proportion of 

 the latter increasing on the higher altitudes. P.eech 

 occurs only as scattered trees or small groujjs. The 

 silver fir attains large dimensions, up to i_'5 feet in height, 

 yielding j to jlA sixteen-foot logs jier tree, and u]) to 

 1.534 



diameters of tive feet breast high. Irees scaling 5,000 

 l)0;ird feet were often cut by the .\merican operations. 

 The .spruce does not attain such large diameters but its 

 yield per unit of area is about equal to that of the fir. 

 J'he stocking is uniformly dense. ( )n two of the larg- 

 est forests of the region, namely, the forest of the Joux, 

 in which Canadian operations were located, and the forest 

 of Levier, the average stand per hectare at the lash 

 calipering was for the Joux, 463 culiic meters, and for 

 Levier, 406 cubic meters. Eliminating the volume allow- 

 ed for branches — the French include the volume of the 

 entire tree in such calculations — this would make an aver- 

 age stand of 35 and 31 thousand board feet, log scale, per 

 acre. There is double this volume on some areas. On 

 some of the parcels cut over the stand ran 800 cubic 

 meters per hectare, or from 70 to 75 thousand board feet 

 per acre. This total volume was not marked for cutting, 

 (if course, except in one forest, where danger from wind 

 throw was acute. On several forests, volumes up to ;o 



lM.OAt)IXG LOGS AT THE MILL LANDING 



thousanil board feet ])er acre were marked for cutting. 

 A stud\' of the ])ercentages of trees and volume marked 

 was made on the lirst cession in the forest of Levier. It 

 was found that the percentage of trees above 60 centi- 

 meters in circumference breast high marked on the 

 si'veral parcels was from jt, to 25, rei)resenting 72 to 73 

 per ct-nt of the volume of the stands. .Such stands 

 fmnished good logging chances. 



The forests of the French Jura belong, for the most 

 ])ari, to the state and to the communes, or communities, 

 scattered over the region. Only a small percentage is 

 under private ownershi]). Scientific forest management. 



