68 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
scale between 1838 and 1860, and was practically completed in 
1864. The planting done from then down to 1880 was mostly 
in the nature of filling blanks and wooding the J/effes or lower 
and more or less inundated tracts. 
In the preliminary survey made from 1819 to 1822, the area 
devastated by the shifting sands in the Landes Department 
amounted to over 120,000 acres, of which about 87,000 acres 
required fixation. Of this, about 65,000 acres have been 
retained in the control of the Forest Department, while the 
remaining 55,000 acres have been handed over to communes 
and private owners, or else alienated under laws passed in 1860 
and 1863. 
In 1906 the woods now vary between 76 and 77 years of age. 
The oldest woods, 76 and 77 years, only occupy small areas in 
the forests of St Julien-en-Born and St Eulalie; and usually the 
oldest class does not exceed 60 to 65 years of age—the age 
being uniform over large tracts operated on simultaneously, as, 
for example, in the forest of St Eulalie, where there are 6700 
acres dating from 1862. This uniformity of age must, of 
course, give rise to practical difficulty as regards the first 
regeneration of these woods; and their ages usually decrease 
from east to west, which also complicates matters for the 
first regeneration. 
A working-plan was drawn up for these forests during 1884 to 
1887. The communal tracts were taken as the units on which 
operations were based, and the blocks of forest have been treated 
separately or grouped together according to their extent, while 
the forests themselves bear the names of the communes in which 
they are situated. There are 11 such forests in all, which form 
2 Inspectorships (Mont-de-Marsan and Dax) in the Bordeaux 
Conservatorship. These forests are treated as highwoods, by 
means of gradual clearance and natural regeneration. The 
rotation is fixed at 75 to 80 years, divided into 15 or 16 periods 
of 5 years each (corresponding to the area of 5 compartments, 
and equal to 5 annual falls), while the estimated yield is fixed 
by the cubic contents to be expected. According to their 
extent, the different forests are divided into from 2 to 6 working- 
circles, which extend in long strips parallel to the sea-coast, and 
are marked off by the parallel paths or fire-traces. The first falls 
are, of course, allocated at the eastern edge of the whole block. 
In each working-circle the annual falls are numbered, and the 
