162 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
improvement of the State Forests, £3160 for their maintenance, 
and £1440 contributed to the fund for the Forest service. 
Indo-China, however, more than makes up for Northern Africa, 
by showing a surplus of £19,460, the receipts being £47,760 
and the expenditure £28,300, of which £23,633 are con- 
nected with establishment, £3166 for material and buildings, 
£815 for sundries, and £686 for works of improvement in 
the woods. 
I have given these French financial statistics in detail, in the 
hope that by some chance it can perhaps be impressed on the 
attention of Government that forests do contribute very directly 
towards the useful and profitable employment of several classes 
of the population in a well-wooded country. There are 664 
officials of gazetted rank and 3650 subordinates; but I am 
unfortunately unable, from the statistics at my disposal, to give 
the amount and value of the manual labour required, while, of 
course, it is impossible to form even a remote estimate of the 
further sums brought into circulation by transport, conversion 
of raw material, etc. But the above figures are at any rate 
suggestive, and they are all the more so when it is recollected 
that, in 1905, the State Forests of France formed less than one- 
eighth of the total wooded area, which is classifiable as 
follows :— 
Hectares 
(=2°47 acres), 
(a) State Forests, 5 : : : : . 1,169,820 
(6) Woodlands owned by communes or private corporations— 
Under State management, + : ; . 1139285760 
Not under State management, : ‘ d 297,852 
(c) Private woodlands, ‘ : : : . 6,217,090 
Total, - _ 9,623,522 
In order to make available all land considered suitable for 
agriculture, the sale of parts of forests in the plains was 
sanctioned by laws passed between 1852 and 1868, and many 
tracts were thus disposed of before such work was completed 
in 1870 (about 77,000 acres having been sold for £1,200,000 
between 1860 and 1870), since which date the acquisition of 
waste land for planting has been the only cause of change in the 
area of State-owned Forest. And how large a field is still open 
for activity in this direction may be seen from the following 
estimate of waste land:— 
EE 
