166 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
of study and experiments, a definite plan was adopted and pub- 
lished in 1878 (Demontzey’s Practical Treatise, etc.). 
The law now in force is that of 1882. This provides State-aid 
for non-obligatory works of utility; but, for those of sufficient 
importance to be declared obligatory, the land is expropriated 
and the necessary works are carried out by the State, unless 
(which rarely happens) a special arrangement is made between 
the State and the landowners for these to execute them, in which 
latter case expropriation is only made in the event of the works 
being badly done or not kept in proper repair. And where such 
works are in process, the exercise of pasturage on all the com- 
munal lands has to be regulated, although this cannot yet be 
said to be done effectively. This law of 1882 can, however, be 
worked without creating the unavoidable friction formerly caused 
by that of 1860, and the result of this has been that the benefits 
of planting are annually gaining widespread recognition with 
regard to the security and improvement of pasturage, the regula- 
tion of the water-supply, and the prevention of devastating 
floods and avalanches. 
The State Forests are, of course, managed upon scientific and 
business principles, which are also applied to the communal 
and corporation forests submitted to State management, although 
allowances have often to be made as to requests for permission 
to make extra falls to cover deficiencies in the communal budgets, 
or to authorise extra pasture for the grazing of cattle. Many 
municipalities have been able to increase greatly the produce 
from their forests by following intelligently the prescriptions of 
their working-plan, while others can only see objectionable re- 
strictions in the measures recommended, and try to evade them. 
The communal forests not subject to State control are, for the 
most part, small in area, and are generally in a very neglected 
condition. 
Most of the private forests are fairly well looked after, and 
many of them are managed on the sound principle that not more 
than the annual increment should be cut each year, But it is 
seldom that the owners derive the full benefit which the land might 
be made to yield, because many of the woods have been hitherto 
managed for the production of fuel, whereas the economic 
changes of the last fifty years have caused a more rapid increase 
in the price of timber than of firewood and charcoal. Thus, in 
Paris alone, despite the increase in population, the quantity of 
