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28 FORESTRY IN FRANCE, 
since that year; or else they were ecclesiastical property confiscated 
at the time of the Revolution in 1790, or they have been more 
recently acquired by purchase, legacy, or gift. About one-half of 
them are ancient royal domains. 
The State forests were formerly of much greater extent than they 
are at present. In 1791 they covered an area of 18,166 square 
miles, which was reduced to 3792 square miles in 1876, the reduct- 
tion being almost solely due to sales effected for the benefit of the 
exchequer ; but the loss of territory after the war of 1870 was the 
cause of a diminution of 374 square miles. The records show that, 
between 1814 and 1870, 1362 square miles of State forests were 
sold for nearly 124 million pounds sterling, or about £14 per acre ; 
but since 1870 no such sales have taken place, and since 1876 the 
area has been somewhat increased by purchases and otherwise. It 
now includes 33 square miles of forest owned jointly with private 
persons, and 450 acres are temporarily held by the families of some 
of Napoleon I.’s generals, whose right will in the course of 
time either lapse or be commuted. The remainder of the area is 
owned absolutely by the State, but the enjoyment of the produce 
does not belong exclusively to the treasury, for, as will be explained 
hereafter, certain groups of rightholders participate in it. 
In the next section, the principal points of the laws relating to 
the communal forests, and of their management by the State Forest 
Department, will be brought to notice ; while in the subsequent 
sections of this chapter the work of the department in connection 
with the State and the communal forests will be briefly treated of, in 
such a manner as to bring out and compare the results obtained in 
the two classes of forests. 
Forests BELONGING TO CoMMUNES, SECTIONS, AND 
Pusuic INSTITUTIONS. 
The territory of France is divided into 39,989 communes or 
village communities, of which about one-third are forest proprietors. 
Certain groups or sections of the inhabitants have, however, rights, 
aud own property, apart from the commune in which they reside, 
and these are also owners of considerable areas of woodland. Those 
forests belonging to communes or sections, which are susceptible of 
being worked on a regular system, are managed directly by the 
State Forest Department, for the benefit of their owners, the prin- 
cipal features of this management being as follows, viz.,—the laws 
