FOREST SITUATION IN FRANCE 529 



the adoption of a forest policy with the purpose of becoming less 

 dependent on imports for the most essential timber supplies. If the 

 situation in France points a moral for the United States it is the great 

 economic value to a country of a consistent and far-sighted policy 

 applied to both public and private timberlands. There is also an answer 

 to those who fear that forestry in this country may divert land from 

 higher uses and retard agricultural development in the fact that in an 

 old and thickly populated country where the requirements for food 

 production are large and agriculture is practised on an intensive scale 

 it has been found profitable to keep so high a proportion of land in 

 forest. The unsatisfactory status of French private forestry is also a 

 strong argument for the extension of Government-owned forests in 

 the United States where for a long time the economic conditions af- 

 fecting private forestry are bound to be less favorable than in France. 



