26 Government Forestry Abroad. 



half of the Government forests stand on hilly or 

 mountainous land. The forest administration to 

 which their care is entrusted is attached to the 

 Department of Agriculture, and the Minister of Agri- 

 culture is president of the Forest Council. This body 

 includes the Director of the Forests and three admin- 

 istrators, the first of whom is at the head of the 

 Bureau for Legal Matters, Forest Instruction, Records 

 and Acquisitions: the second of the Bureau of Work- 

 ing Plans and Utilization, and the third of that for 

 Reforesting the Mountains. Public Works, Replanting 

 and Clearing. 



The personnel under the general direction of this 

 council consists of 36 conservators, who are the 

 higher inspecting and controlling officers: 225 inspec- 

 tors, "who are in administrative charge of divisions 

 called inspections; 242 assistant inspectors, the 

 executive officers, each of whom personally directs 

 the work in his cantonment, and 328 officers of lower 

 rank, called gardes gtneraux, whose work, in many 

 cases similar to that of the grade above them, is 

 difficult to define. Besides the 834 members of this 

 superior branch of the service, there were in 1885 

 some 3,532 forest guards of various grades. It is 

 safe to assume that the force of the protective staff 

 has remained substantially the same. 



The system of training for the service of the supe 

 rior staff differs widely from that which we have 

 seen in Germany. There is but one higher forest 

 school, that at Nancy, in place of the numerous in- 

 stitutions of the Germans, and until very recently 

 the whole course of preparation required of candi- 

 dates for the government service consisted in the two 

 years of study which it offered. At present entrance 



