FORESTRY IN FRANCE. 239 
year the State and communal forests taken together gave 5,620,663 
loads (50 cubic feet) of wood, or an average of about 40 cubic feet 
per acre ; also 50,742 tons of tanning bark, 292 tons of cork bark, 
and 1967 tons of resin. 
The yield of wood per acre of the State forests somewhat exceeded 
that of the communal forests ; but while, in explanation of this, it 
must be said that the greater extent to which grazing is practised 
in the latter affects their wood production unfavourably, it must 
also be admitted that a large proportion of their produce is made 
over to the inhabitants for their own use, and that this is estimated 
at a low figure, so as to reduce as far as possible the charges against 
them on account of management by the Forest Department; and 
the apparent difference is largely due to the latter cause. Of 
the total yield in wood, 1,364,846 loads were timber, and 4,255,817 
loads were firewood ; and, as might be expected from what has been 
said before regarding the different systems of culture adopted, the 
State forests gave the larger proportion of timber, one-third of the 
wood from them being of that class ; while in the case of the com- 
munal forests the proportion of timber was only one-fifth. A still 
more striking result would follow a comparison of the nature of 
the produce obtained from the State and from private forests; and 
since timber is a more useful and valuable product than firewood, 
the advantage to the country, from this point of view, of consider- 
able areas of forest land being owned by the State is apparent, and 
the more so when it is remembered that France does not grow 
more than two-thirds of the amount of building-timber that she 
consumes. 
The communal high-forest is for the most part situated in the 
mountains, and is composed of coniferous trees, which explains 
the fact that the greater part of the timber derived from the com- 
munal forests is fir and pine, whereas only about one-third of that 
coming from the State forests is of those kinds. 
SALES AND EXportT. 
Principal Produce (Wood, Bark, and Resin).—With the ex- 
ception of the produce made over to right-holders, and of that 
delivered to the inhabitants of the communes from their forests for 
their own consumption, as well as of comparatively small quantities 
of timber cut in the State forests for the War Department and 
Admiralty, the whole of the annual produce is sold by public 
auction, and no other mode of sale is permitted. There are three 
