1020 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



We are inclined to think that cHmatically and commercially or indus- 

 trially the third of the French colonies, Corsica, finds closer counter- 

 parts in the United States, although the population, difficult enough in 

 the other two colonies, is more unruly than anywhere, which makes 

 protection against fire and trespass, especially grazing of sheep and 

 goats, most difficult. So difficult indeed is it to apply the grazing regu- 

 lations that they are in fact not applied in order to avoid incendiarism, 

 and silvicultural methods are devised not for their silvicultural value, 

 but to meet this difficulty of grazing and fire. 



The character of the people — not Frenchmen — with which the ad- 

 ministration has to deal may be judged from the statement that in 191 1 

 almost 600 trespass cases were before the courts and more than half 

 were acquitted. 



Corsica has been under French domination 150 years (since 1768, 

 when they captured the island, not 1759, as stated, when the Genoese 

 ceded their rights to it), but an attempt at technical forest administra- 

 tion dates back not quite 100 years (1824). 



Of the 3,400 square miles, in 1878 not quite 25 per cent, or half a 

 million acres, were officially reported under forest; but by 1912 the 

 figure, if not the forest, had shrunk to 430,000 acres, two-thirds State 

 forest, but this figure is by nearly 100,000 acres too large if really 

 wooded condition is meant, reducing the forest per cent to 16. A 

 mountain range occupies the center of the island, the lower slopes of 

 which, as far as not field or pasture, being occupied by maquis (chap- 

 arral and mismanaged hardwoods) and some cork and other oaks ; 

 maritime pine and chestnut are typical of the elevations up to 3,000, and 

 the alpine zone up to 6,000 feet is composed of Corsican pine, with 

 beech and fir. The pines occupy the largest area, 67 per cent in the 

 State forests and nearly 50 per cent on the average , the Corsican pine, 

 being by far the most important, growing to a height of 150 feet and 

 more and sometimes over 6 feet in diameter. 



All details of modern fire protection are missing; only partial brush 

 disposal and fire lines brushed out, wider and narrow ones, contrary to 

 the Algerian experience, the wider lines being favored except for the 

 expense. 



The fear of larger conflagrations has also been the reason that for the 

 light-needing Corsican pine the sacrifice is brought of using the selection 

 system to avoid the large even-aged areas resulting from the shelter- 

 wood system used before. While under this system the areas need 

 not have been so large, other considerations, namely, the need of open- 

 ing up the country by roads, required that large enough and long-term 



