34 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



forthcoming cutting-plan. In many of the new plans of the 

 Vosges and Haute Savoie forests, however, a percentage 

 increment figure is added to the figure for the annual cut as 

 obtained above. In Boisgrand the rotation of 150 years is 

 divided into three periods, and again into three revision periods 

 of 17, 17, and 16 years. The three age-classes were taken as 

 those contained in the girth register of 



I. = 1*30 to 2 -GO m. circumference. 

 II. = 70 to 1*30 m. ,, 



III. = o to •70 m. „ 



In 1909 the yield for the present 17-year period was fixed at 

 706 cm. per annum, after adding some of the average age-class 

 trees (between 1*30 and i'4o m. girth) to make up for a slight 

 deficit in the old class. 



In the Foret des Bains du Mont Dore, the rotation is now 

 fixed at 144 years divided into three periods of 48 years, and 

 by improvement in the condition of the crop owing to careful 

 management, the possibility has been raised from 281 cub. 

 metres in 1888 to 484 cub. metres in 19 11. In the revision 

 which has been completed since the war it has been raised 

 further, in spite of the difficulties experienced with the town 

 authorities and the tourists, both of which groups demand 

 the right to use the forest as a public park. 



Protection Work. 



In the forests above the town of Mont Dore, we find con- 

 centrated all the difficulties which usually beset the forester 

 who has to work against nature in the prevention of erosion. 

 The gorge of the Dore valley, in which the towns of Mont Dore 

 and La Bourboule are situated, is being rapidly denuded of 

 vegetation on the higher slopes by the action of ^snow-slides 

 and severe frost upon the comparatively soft and easily weathered 

 inetamorphic andesites and trachytes. What areas of forest 

 there are in existence are too small to do more than check the 

 denudation immediately above the town of Mont Dore itself, 

 and the valley is gradually silting up with the debris which 

 is carried down by each spring "spate." It is absolutely 

 essential that the forest area should be carried further, and 

 attempts are now being made to enlarge the communal forest 

 area from 281 hectares to over 800, including the steep slopes 



