142 FRANCE - MISCEIvI^ANEOUS 



ing the work as rapidly as was desirable and it was decided to substitute them 

 by collectors of taxes. 



(b) Transfer of the work of classification to the charge of the superintend- 

 ents. — As it had been recognised necessary, in order to ensure the greatest 

 accuracy in the valuations, to have all the work of valuation properly so 

 called done by one and the same ojficer, the duty of classifying the holdings 

 was taken from the collectors and assigned to the superintendents who 

 were already charged to prepare the valuation scales. 



{c) Substitution of classifiers for assessors. — It appeared in the course 

 of the experiments, that many of the members of the commissions of assess- 

 ors were not sufficiently skilled in the matter of land valuation and it was 

 considered advisable, under these circumstances, to give the superintendents 

 the assistance of committees of classifiers, composed entirely of landowners, 

 metayers or farm managers. 



(d) Grouping and classification of holdings. — • Finally, the system of 

 grouping adopted not seeming suitable in every case for the rapid and sure 

 performance of the work of classification, a new method was substituted, 

 namely the grouping of the parcels according to owners and the leaves of the 

 cadastral plan. According to this system, all the real estate belonging to each 

 landowner had, before any other operation, to be entered together, by the 

 head officers, with the assistance of the cadastral register, on separate forms 

 for each leaf of the plan. On these forms, then, note was made by the 

 collectors of any change in the mode of farming, and they were then util- 

 ised by the superintendents for the purposes of the classification, after 

 having been arranged according to the leaves of the plan and according 

 to the position of the holdings. 



On November 20th., 1898, the special commission instituted at the 

 Finance Department gave its entire approval to the procedure established, 

 on condition that the course to be followed in the estimation of woodlands 

 should only be finally settled after consultation with delegates of the 

 department of waters and forests. The latter adhered to the pro- 

 posals ; but, in case Parliament should wish to grant special concessions 

 to long term forestry undertakings, they asked that in the course of the work 

 it shotdd be ascertained, independently of the real revenue from the full 

 grown trees, what the yield would be were the land planted for copse wood. 



This idea being approved by the Commission, the instructions were 

 completed by a clause to this effect : they were also brought into accord 

 with the new decision embodied in the Financial Ivaw of December 26th., 

 1908, to the effect that no value was to be assigned to the ground built on 

 or forming an immediate adjunct to buildings : they were approved by 

 the Minister of Finance on December 31st., 1908. 



II. — Final Instructions. — The Ministerial Instructions of Decem- 

 ber 31st., 1908, containing the rules ultimately applied in establishing the 

 real revenue or rental value of unbuilt on land, divided the work of valu- 

 ation into preparatory work, examination of the kind of farming, valu- 

 ation properly so called, and ulterior operations, according to the order of 

 their performance. 



