FORESTRY COMMISSIONER. 91 



forests have been established with a view of insuring a 

 continuous annual production and even of increasing that 

 production in the forests where it is not yet sufficient. 



PRIVATE FORESTS. 



Private individuals are at liberty to manage their for- 

 ests as they please. But they are prohibited from cutting 

 and taking trees from forests which are necessary to 

 maintain and regulate water flow, to protect lands against 

 the encroachments of the sea and sands, to defend the 

 territory, or which are necessary for the public health. 

 The destruction of private forests has become rarer and 

 rarer and the proprietors acknowledge now that on soils 

 of poor quality the income from forests is greater than 

 that from arable land. As a result the area of private 

 forests, instead of decreasing, increases from year to year 

 by reason of the timbering of lands on which agriculture 

 pays but small profits. 



The income from private forests in quantity and in 

 money is not exactly known. It is, however, known that 

 on the same area they pay less than the state forests. 

 Private individuals in their anxiety to get returns are in- 

 clined to cut down the wood when it is too young, and in 

 the forests where coppice wood is raised they do not leave 

 a sufficient reserve, and oftentimes leave none at all. One 

 can notice, however, that the principles of sylviculture 

 are spreading more and more in the culture of private 

 forests. The large forests are subjected to the same mode 

 of management and are treated like the state or munici- 

 pal forests. On the whole the annual production is regu- 

 lar and tends to become better in both quantity and 

 quality. 



FOREST FIRES. 



In the temperate and in the cold regions of France (that 

 is, in the larger portion of the territory) the fires are but 

 few and cause slight damage. The long periods of 



