280 FORESTRY IN FRANCE. 
consequently, in a very large number of cases, managed directly 
by their owners. There are no private institutions for the train- 
ing of foresters and woodmen ; and although the State Forest 
Schools are open to receive ‘free students,” very little advantage 
is taken of this privilege. The Nancy School has only trained 
thirty such students since it was established in 1824, and the 
secondary and primary schools have only received one student 
between them, Neither the owners, nor their managers or guards, 
have then, as a rule, had any professional education, notwithstand- 
ing that the means of obtaining it is open to them ; and it is not 
to be wondered at, if grave mistakes in the management of 
their forests are of frequent occurrence. In some places they 
have the means of getting a certain amount of advice from the 
State forest officials, who are occasionally permitted to render 
assistance in this manner; but they frequently attempt to imitate 
what is being done in the State forests, without knowing the 
reasons for what they see ; and they are thus led to commit serious 
mistakes, as, for example, when, in treating a forest which is to 
be permanently maintained as coppice under standards, they follow 
the procedure adopted in a neighbouring State forest, which is 
undergoing conversion into high-forest. In many cases, of course, 
the private woods are too distant from the State or com- 
munal forests, to permit of their owners obtaining any advice or 
assistance from the officials of the Forest Department, and they 
are then thrown entirely on their own resources. 
CHAPTER?’ VIT. 
Tur ALGERIAN FORESTS. 
The colony of Algeria, which was conquered in 1828, is 162,000 
square miles in extent, that is to say, it is about four-fifths of the 
size of France. It is bounded on the north by the Mediterranean 
Sea, on the east by Tunis, on the west by Morocco, and it extends 
southward into the Sahara down to the 30th degree of latitude. 
It is divided into three departments, viz., Oran on the West, 
Algiers in the centre, and Constantine on the east. The popula- 
tion averages only about 21 per square mile, as compared with 181 
in France. 
The two chains of the Atlas Mountains, which attain to a 
maximum height of about 7500 feet, run, roughly speaking, 
