1018 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



author opens the volume with a summary on ten pages, rather too brief 

 to leave a useful result on the reader's mind. 



In Tunisia, where the French instituted a forest service in 1883, cork 

 oak forests (250,000 acres, with 10 million trees) are the valuable prop- 

 erty, located in the north. These are to some extent intensively man- 

 aged, in orchard fashion, with a 3-year return period, while the less 

 valuable Aleppo pine and holm oak is cut for fuel or maintained as 

 cover against erosion and as windbreaks. 



On the central plateau occupied by "ruins of former forest," in which 

 the pine is the main species, the forest cover is maintained entirely for 

 protective purposes ; and the southern zone is practically f orestless. 

 Here, of course, extensive management is forced and keeping — if pos- 

 sible — fires out seems to be the only policy. When it is stated that in 

 the budget for the administration of the 1.9 million acres of forest in 

 all 7 supervisors and 126 of lower grade (half of them natives) are 

 provided, a judgment as to the efificiency of the protection may be had. 

 Working plans are unknown and "not required." The only restriction 

 upon ordinary grazing, which is permitted at a price, is after a confla- 

 gration, when for six years the area is closed. Incendiarism is still the 

 chief cause of fire. Nothing special is attempted in fire protection ex- 

 cept fire lines in the cork-oak forests, which "only brushed out are 

 almost always ineffective, unless all trees and stems are removed." But 

 this is very expensive. The practice of fire-line construction is detailed. 

 As far as we can see, nothing is to be learned from Tunisia for direct 

 application in fire protection with us. 



Considerable attention has been given to fixation of sand-dunes and 

 shifting sands for the protection of oases. Planting as far as possible 

 is avoided, and a seed-spot method is preferred before resorting to 

 planting, but "thus far the scale of operations has been so small (in 35 

 years!) that forestation in Tunisia may still be considered as experi- 

 mental in character." 



This is different in Algiers, where a special reforestation service is 

 installed. But then Algeria has been twice as long, or 60 years, under 

 French domination. The administrative organization has been vacil- 

 lating and varied from time to time, and is now, since 1896, with final 

 improvements in 1906, directly under the Governor General, except that 

 the technical officers are loaned by the home Secretary of Agriculture, 

 a curious condition which is said to work better than any previous ar- 

 rangement. There are 66 such officers, besides over 1,000 guards and 

 rangers, for a State forest area of around 5 million (out of a total of 7 

 million) acres, divided into three conservations. More than half this 



