FOREST SITUATION IN FRANCE 0^5 



the feeling that a reserve must be kept for reconstruction and for 

 local wood using industries after the war, prevented any serious over- 

 cutting of the public forests. Show places, such as Fontainebleau and 

 Rambouillet were scarcely touched. Even forests on the very fighting 

 lines, for example those of Compiegne and Villars-Cotterets, still 

 possess magnificent stands of saw timber. Some of the inaccessible 

 mountain forests were actually benefitted silviculturally by the rembval 

 of over-mature timber not marketable under ordinary conditions or 

 left standing on account of extreme conservatism. 



The excess war production of timber, leaving out of consideration 

 the occupied territory, was largely at the expense of private forests. 

 The rapid increase in timber values which began in 1916, augmented 

 enormously in ]91T, and continued to mount in 1918, offered to owners 

 of timberlands a tempting opportunity to dispose of their products at 

 previously unheard-of prices. Naturally speculators commenced pur- 

 chasing forests to hold for resale at big profits, and would have added 

 greatly to the inflation had their activities not been checked through 

 centralized buying by the Allied armies and use of the power of requi- 

 sition. However, war prices were so elevated that many owners con- 

 sidered it good business to take advantage of them regardless of the 

 effect on their forests and consequently sold for very heavy or clear 

 cutting. Others compromised on moderately heavy cutting, and others 

 who did not wish to sell at all were forced to do so by threat or use of 

 requisition. When the power of requisition was used, however, cut- 

 tings were always conserv'atively marked and scenic interests guarded 

 most conscientiously. A forest was never devastated against the 

 owner's will. Nevertheless buying pressure was so great that private 

 forests, which constitute over two-thirds of the total wooded area, 

 were very heavily overcut. 



PRESENT PROBLEMS 



The close of the war finds French forest resources seriously depleted 

 but by no means exhausted. The loss in the invaded region of the 

 North, especially in the well wooded Departments of the Aisne and 

 Ardennes, was very heavy, both from military operations, including 

 shell fire, and from confiscation by the enemy. In the zone of severe 

 and long-continued fighting there was about 150,000 hectares or 370.000 

 acres of forest. All of this was badly damaged and much of it prac- 

 tically destroyed. The total loss is not known, but the best estimate is 



