1885.] ADMINISTRATION OF FRENCH FORESTS. 171 



ripening season. With hard fruit this does not occur, and it 

 requires much less skill and labour to gather and market the crop, 

 so that it is specially adapted for being handled by the ordinar)' 

 labour employed on a farm. All the attention the trees require, 

 after being once established, can be performed by an intelhgent 

 labourer, as is the general practice in the orchard counties at the 

 present time. However, the best skill obtainable should always be 

 used, and on most estates gardeners are employed, whose business is 

 to treat fruit-trees in the best manner to produce a crop of good 

 fruit ; and where perfect dependence cannot be placed in the skill of 

 labourers, gardeners can always be called upon to do the planting 

 and pruning of orchards, tlie only two operations really requiring 

 trained experience and skill. All other matters of cultivation and 

 gathering of the crop are very much mere routine, and can be 

 performed by any ordinary labourer. 



Land which grows good wheat, or good potatoes, is quite suitable 

 for growing good crops of apples, pears, and plums, and requires 

 little preparation, if well drained and moderately sheltered before 

 being converted into an orchard. Much excellent land of this 

 nature has not paid for cultivation under grain crops for years ; 

 raining tlie farmer, and reducing the income of the owner to a very 

 small amount. Under a crop of thriving fruit-trees, it would at 

 least have paid all parties well, even in these times of low prices ; 

 and now that it is worth so little as arable land, those who own it 

 could not do better than lay down a due proportion in orchards. 

 Tenants under present circumstances cannot undertake permanent 

 improvements of this nature, but it is one which in the near future 

 will handsomely repay the enterprising and intelligent proprietor, 

 who desires to make the best use of his land, and to promote the 

 welfare and interests of those around him. D. 



TEE ADMINISTRATION OF FBENCH STATE FORESTS. 



A SOMEWHAT lively discussion occurred in the French 

 Chamber of Deputies on December 6, when the Budget for 

 Forest Work of 1885 was presented. Some of the points brought 

 out are of general interest. 



M. Lelievre called attention to the deplorable fact that State 

 forestry was unproductive. The net produce from millions of 

 hectares was only 12 fr. per hectare. The cause of all this was 

 that the present system of Forest administration is arbitrary. In a 

 forest well exploited, the annual cutting, it is held, ought to corre- 

 spond with the annual increase of the forest. But the Forest 



