FOREST EXPLOITATION. 163 



dient previously to bring under consideration another 

 method of exploitation. 



SECTION D. ' FUKETAGE,' AND ' TAILLIS Sous FUTAIE/ 



Furetage is a method of exploiting coppice woods com- 

 posed of trees which reproduce shoots from the stump 

 freely, and can reproduce a wood or forest without the 

 aid of self-sown seed. It may be considered a modification 

 of Jardinage applicable to the exploitation of such trees, 

 though not to others ; and the designation given to it in 

 contradistinction to Jardinage has been given from some 

 fancied resemblance to that of a ferret ferreting out what 

 it is in pursuit of, as the other designation has been given 

 in reference to some fancied resemblance to that of the 

 kitchen gardener in gathering his crops. But in practice 

 it is assimilated to La Method* a tire et aire. 



' Furetage] says the late Professor Bagneris, Inspector of 

 Forests, and Professor at the Forest School of Nancy, in a 

 work entitled Elements of Sylviculture* ' consists in cutting 

 the strongest shoots out of a clump, and in leaving the 

 weaker ones. The wood-cutter returns to the same place 

 every eight or ten years, and if the poles are cut at the 

 age of twenty-four or thirty years (i.e., if the rotation is 

 of twenty-four or thirty years) the clumps are composed 

 of shoots of three different ages/ It is a method of 

 exploitation applied chiefly to beech coppice wood. 



The beech is a tree which is not well adapted for 

 exploitation as coppice ; but it can be exploited thus 

 advantageously. There are in France about 100,000 

 acres of beech coppice, belonging for the most part to 

 private proprietors. These are situated chiefly in that 

 part of France formerly known as Morvan, on the Swiss 

 side of the Jura, and at the foot of the Pyrenees, and 



* Elements of Sylviculture : a Short Treatise on the Scientific Cultivation of the 

 Oak and other Hardwood Trees. Translated from the French by" E. E. Fernandez and 

 A. Smythies, B.A., Indian Forest Service. London : William Rider & Son ; Simpkin, 

 Marshall, & Co. 1SS2. 



