72 Forestry Quarterly. 



ficult to attain, the 'unforeseeableness' of things, the needs of the 

 present, the uncertainty of the future would have to cease playing 

 a role in human affairs." This position is borne out in actual 

 conditions, private forests are mostly not timber forests, rotations 

 are short, stocks insufficient, the opposite of the State forests. 



Yet, as the author contends at length, while the attitude of the 

 State towards its forest property must be different, there is no 

 good reason why it should forego any of the financial advantages 

 from it, reducing cost of production and not lengthening time of 

 production beyond the necessary. French forest management 

 with high rotations, moderate thinnings and low interest earnings 

 needs reform in this direction. 



Even private owners in France are beginning to change their 

 attitude. The profitableness of coppice and low rotations begins 

 to become doubtful; rise in labor prices and lack of market for 

 charcoal have depreciated the value of coppice ; decrease in in- 

 terest rate and increase of wood prices lead to accumulation of 

 more wood capital and increase of rotation. 



Composite forest (taillis sous futaie, taillis compose), as we 

 have seen, forms, with about 8 million acres, the most widely dis- 

 tributed system of forest management in France, often hardly to 

 be distinguished on account of the scanty overwood, from the 

 simple coppice with overholders. For 200 years and more this 

 system has persisted on many areas without change. 



A simple area division forms the felling budget, but character- 

 istic is the holding over for reserve one-quarter of the area, to 

 be used only in case of need ; such need occurs regularly during 

 the rotation of 25 years, so that no change of rotation results 

 from this reserve. This reserve idea dates from Colbert's cele- 

 brated order of 1669. 



Rotations vary from 10 to 30 and more years, the 20 to 30 

 year rotations prevailing, generally higher than in Germany, 

 where the sprouting capacity of stocks rather than the character 

 of the firewood is the foremost consideration. 



The overwood consists of three classes corresponding to three 

 rotations ; baliveau — to hold for two rotations, modernes for 

 three, anciens which are in the fourth rotation of the underwood. 

 A very accurate statement of numbers of each to be held over is 

 made, in one case under observation 50, 14, 6 respectively per 

 hectar, a very open position, the overwood representing from 600 



