FORESTRY IN FRANCE. 241 
which best suits the requirements of the market at the moment, a 
matter with which the forest officer can never be so well acquainted 
as the professional timber-merchant, and thus, not only do the general 
interests of the country suffer by failure to supply wood in the form 
in which it is most required by the consumers, but the prices 
realised are not always so good as those which the produce might 
have been made to fetch had it been cut up in some other manner. 
Timber sold standing usually commands a higher rate than it 
does when disposed of in any other manner ; and for this and the 
other reasons that have been given, the first of the three systems is 
the one generally adopted in both the State and the communal 
forests. This method of sale is not generally followed in other 
European countries ; but the French system has stood the test of 
experience ; and it is greatly facilitated by the honesty which, as a 
general rule, prevails in the trade to which it has given rise. 
In consequence of the absence or insufficiency of export roads in 
Corsica, and of the difficulty experienced in getting purchasers who 
were willing to take the produce for a single year only, a law was 
passed in 1840, which enacted that the timber to be cut in any part 
of that island during a series of years, not exceeding twenty, might 
be sold at one time to a single purchaser, the State, at the expiry 
of the term, becoming possessed of all works erected by him, with- 
out liability to the payment of compensation for them. A few of 
such contracts exist to the present day; but both the system of 
roads and the timber trade having largely developed during the last 
forty-five years, the practice of entering upon such engagements is 
gradually dying out. 
Minor Produce.—KReceipts on account of minor produce form 
an insignificant portion of the gross revenue derived from the 
French forests, the most important item being that which is due to 
the sale of hunting and shooting permits. Produce of this class is 
not sold so much as a source of revenue, as to enable the agricultural 
population to make use of it, without giving rise to the idea that 
they are entitled to it by right. It is sold by private contract, the 
price being fixed by the conservator, or by the Prefect, or the Mayor, 
in the case of the State and communal forests respectively. The 
conditions under which such sales are effected in the State forests, 
are determined by each conservator, with reference to local circum- 
stances; and he retains the power to forbid the sale from the 
communal forests of any classes of produce, the removal of which 
would, in his opinion, be detrimental from a cultural point of view: 
