206 France. 



one-third, belonging to state and communities, are 

 placed under the regime for estier, i.e., supervised and 

 managed under working plans. The larger area is 

 under coppice. 



Three-fourths of the communal and one-sixth of 

 the state's timber forest is managed under selection 

 system. Combinations of farm and forest culture 

 (sartage and furetage) are still quite extensively prac- 

 tised. The production of saw-timber under these 

 practices is naturally small. Of the 40 cubic feet of 

 wood per acre produced in the better class of managed 

 state and communal properties, only 10 cubic feet 

 are saw-logs, and if the private forests were taken into 

 consideration, the average product, on the whole 

 would appear still smaller, the private properties 

 being mostly small, poorly managed, and largely 

 coppice. Neither the owners, nor their managers and 

 guards have, as a rule, any professional education, 

 although the means of obtaining it exist in the schools 

 at Nancy and Barres. 



Blessed for the largest part with a most favorable 

 climate and with rich soil of tertiary formation, the 

 difficulties in forestry practices experienced by other, 

 more northern and continental countries are hardly 

 known. Hence many practices which are successful in 

 France might in Germany prove disastrous, and such 

 yields as some of the oak forests show, unattainable. 



The greatest interest for the forester attaches to 

 the methods of conversion of coppice into timber 

 forest, to the extensive areas reforested during the 

 last century, which probably exceed 3 million acres, 

 and to the reboisement work in the mountains. 



