CONTINENTAL NOTES — FRANCE. 53 



sounded the customary call which every morning announced the 

 departure of the herd for the forest. "It was "—to quote our 

 author — "a souvenir of the night of Bethlehem, when the 

 shepherds were the first to salute the birth of the Saviour." 



At the present time the whole forest is in the charge of one 

 officer who has twenty-eight subordinates, most of whom hold 

 beats, and live in forest lodges, to which are attached 3 hectares 

 of free land — a valuable concession. 



AH real forest conservancy dates from the famous " Ordon- 

 nance" of 1669, but this did not get properly to work till 1695. 

 The first forest officer was a gentleman named Perreaud, and 

 the charge of the forest actually remained in this man's family 

 till 1783. One famous officer of Haguenau was Clement de 

 Grandprey, whose name will be known to some of us ; he was 

 there from 1 854-1870. The first attempt at regular working 

 was, as said, in 1695, when an immense coupe (felling area) of 

 about 350 acres in one place was made. It is interesting to 

 hear that to this day there are pillars, marked with ih&Jfeur de lys 

 and the rose of Haguenau, indicating the bounds of this coupe. 

 These huge felling areas, following each other in sequence, were 

 continued for a few years, after which they were made smaller 

 and more numerous, and were scattered. Originally about 

 eight stems were reserved per acre, but this was increased later 

 to thirty-two. At first no cleanings or thinnings were made. 

 The result was a sort of coppice-with-standards, but the Scots 

 pine increased. There was heavy felling during the first empire 

 for financial reasons. 



The first real working-plan was made in 1845, ^"^ '^ ^^^^ ^^ 

 interesting for those of us who were at Nancy to hear that 

 Nanquette was engaged on this work in a junior capacity. It 

 took three years to complete this plan. There were twenty-five 

 working-sections of high-forest, and five of coppice (though only 

 over some 2200 acres) in the wetter parts. This coppice was on 

 a 35-year rotation. The high-forest had rotations of 160 to 180 

 years for the oak, 120 for the beech, and no to 120 for the pine, 

 according to the quality of the soil. As the oak and beech 

 must have been together their different rotations probably caused 

 some difficulty, since the method of treatment was the Uniform 

 Method. The possibility was fixed at 3-97 cubic metres per 

 hectare (about 56 cubic feet per acre) per annum for the high- 

 forest. 



