222 FORESTRY IN FRANCE. 
that year the woods and forests were owned in the following pro- 
portions by the different classes of proprietors, viz. :— 
Square miles. 
The State, . 2 : : 3,734 = 10°7 per cent. 
Communes and sections of communes, 7,949 = 22°4 _ 
Public institutions, : - 124= 0°3 DP 
Private proprietors, ; . 28,69/ =/66°6 : 
35,464 = 100 
and these figures may be taken as fairly representing the actual 
position at the present time. 
Forests are not so exhausting to the soil as agricultural crops. 
In the case of the latter, the entire plant, except the roots, which 
are sometimes also taken, is removed, whereas with a crop of trees, 
the leaves, flowers, and fruit, which are far richer in nutritive 
elements than the wood, are annually returned to the soil, and thus 
serve to maintain its productive power, as well as, by their pro- 
tective action, to keep it in a good physical condition. Hence 
forests can flourish on comparatively poor soil; some kinds of 
trees, notably most of the conifers, being able to grow on ground 
that would be quite incapable of producing a series of remunerative 
agricultural crops ; and it is therefore, generally speaking, out of 
place to keep rich fertile valleys under forests, which ought rather 
to be maintained on ground which cannot be profitably cultivated. 
In well-populated districts, matters naturally tend to settle them- 
selves in this manner ; the better classes of ground being brought 
under the plough, while every acre of the rest of the country is 
kept wooded, in order to meet the domestic and agricultural wants 
of a dense population. But it is otherwise in less favoured locali- 
ties. Here vast areas might be devoted to the production of wood ; 
but while, from the nature of the case, the local consumption is 
in such places very small, the absence of communications fre- 
quently renders export very difficult. Hence wood has but a very 
small value, and the forests tend to disappear gradually before the 
excessive grazing to which they are subjected ; for the population 
of such regions, being unable to make its living by agriculture, is, 
generally speaking, driven to adopt a pastoral life. 
Forests grow in France at all altitudes up to about 9000 or 9500 
feet above the sea, a much larger proportion of them being found 
at low than at high levels. Thus it has been calculated that if the 
country were divided into altitude-zones of 200 metres each (656 
feet), the lowest zone would contain 36 per cent. of the forests, while 
