FORESTRY COMMISSIONER. 75 



It may happen that those trees are thrown down by a 

 hurricane or destroyed by fire. In that case recourse 

 must necessarily be taken to planting, but that case does 

 not often occur. In the private forests the same method 

 is generally applied as in the State and Communal forests. 

 However, as these forests are felled at a very early age, 

 the proprietors must restore them by planting. This 

 only occurs in the regions of plains where pine forests are 

 grown on barren ground with a view of yielding the larg- 

 est possible revenue. 



A forester, with scientific knowledge, i. e. a ranger or 

 assistant conservator (Garde general an Inspecteur adjoint 

 these two officers fulfilling the same functions) has on an 

 average to administer an area of 19,000 acres of State 

 forests, Communal forest or forests belonging to a public 

 establishment. They generally have at their command 

 three chief guards and ten or twelve forest guards. 



Properly speaking there are no workmen who devote 

 themselves especially to forest work. Most of them only 

 come into the forests in the bad season; in summer time 

 they work in the fields. The number of workmen em- 

 ployed for 1,000 acres can therefore not be given exactly. 

 It varies according to the regions and the longer or short- 

 er time that the workmen devote to the forest work. 

 Many forests being surrounded with villages, many wood- 

 cutters repair to their homes every evening. However, 

 when the forests are very large and require work too far 

 situated from the villages, the workmen, in order to avoid 

 too great loss of time in the morning and evening, con- 

 struct huts in which they spend the night and cook their 

 meals. The charcoal-burners, obliged to watch day and 

 night over the kilns, always live in the forests. 



Very considerable reforesting is made on mountain 

 lands, where the state plants trees to regulate the action 

 of the waters and stop the ravages of torrents. For 

 that purpose $700,000 are expended every year, the 



