FORESTRY IN FRANCE. 245 
over to the inhabitants for their own use, and its value is estimated 
at a low rate, in order to keep down the amount of their contribution 
for the services of the State Forest Department, which is levied in 
proportion to the sum of their gross revenue and the value of the 
wood delivered to them. In addition to this, it should be said that 
the revenue on minor produce shows cash receipts only, no credit 
being taken for payments made chiefly in the communes by means 
of days’ work done in the forests. These circumstances account to 
some extent for the smaller revenue obtained from the communal 
forests ; but the true explanation of this result is to be found in 
the important influence exercised by the system of culture adopted. 
In 1876 it was observed that the highest rate of gross revenue was 
obtained from high-forest, and the lowest from simple coppice, while 
coppice under standards occupied an intermediate place. It was 
also found that in the case of high-forest, the areas under coniferous 
trees yielded a much higher revenue than those under broad-leaved 
species, chiefly on account of the form of their stems, which 
enables a very large proportion of sawn timber to be obtained from 
them, but partly also from the greater value of the thinnings taken 
from them during the early stages of their growth—in the form, for 
example, of telegraph and hop-poles, etc. The revenue from forests 
composed of coniferous and broad-leaved trees mixed together lay 
between these two. But, of course, this is not an universal rule ; 
for a high-forest of beech might yield a better return than a coppice 
with oak standards, and a similar comparison might be made 
between forests stocked with other trees of different relative values, 
and managed under various systems. The following figures, show- 
ing the results of sales in the Nancy conservatorship, will serve to 
illustrate what has been said :— 
Simple coppice, - - : ae . yielded 4s. 4d. per acre. 
Coppice under standards, . : . - : 5) iiss cde Pe 
High-forest of broad-leaved species, . Ae lst 7 Gk 5 
High-forest of coniferous and broad-leav + species, ,, 23s. 10d. rf 
High- forest of coniferous species, ‘ - . 97 me OSA + 
Looking, then, at the larger proportion of the communal forests 
which is under coppice, and at the relatively greater proportion of 
firewood and timber of small size that they consequently produce, 
the smaller gross revenue per acre that they were able to yield is no 
longer surprising. Taking the State and the communal forests 
together, it was found that their gross revenue was 22 per cent. 
