6 IMPRESSIONS OF FRENCH FORESTRY 



between the French instinct for forest conservation and their present-day 

 spirit of personal liberty. With its limited application the value of this 

 law exists largely as a support of the efforts of the Government to prevent 

 deforestation on mountain slopes where torrential erosion is liable to occur. 

 The law is of special interest to Americans, however, because it expresses 

 a far-reaching principle the responsibility of the private forest owner 

 for keeping his land productive as a forest. The significance of this in- 

 fringement of the rights of private ownership can be appreciated only in 

 the light of the sacredness of property rights in France. A people fully 

 as jealous of individual liberties as ourselves have not hesitated to curtail 

 property rights in the case of forests as distinct from all other classes 

 of land because of the special public interests which forests serve. 



Tax Exemptions on Forests. The distinctive value of forests as a 

 national resource is also recognized by the French in their methods of 

 taxation. All forest plantations are accorded tax exemptions in varying 

 degrees during the first 30 years. This exemption from tax burdens is 

 complete in the case of plantations on mountain slopes or summits or on 

 sand dunes or other barrens. Otherwise forests in France are taxed on 

 their current income. Under the law of 1907 land in all forms of culture 

 is classified periodically in accordance with its productivity. There may 

 thus be three or four classes of forest land as determined by soil, timber 

 species, and the value of wood products. The net yearly income from 

 each class of forest is then fixed from a study of sample areas. All forest 

 properties are classified and assigned an income rating. This represents 

 the average net yearly receipts for wood and timber after deducting costs 

 of upkeep, fire protection, administration, thinnings, planting, and other 

 cultural measures. The national and local taxes usually amount to 8 or 

 10 per cent of the net income. 



FOREST AND LAND CONSERVATION 



Stabilization of the Gascon Sand Dunes. Another striking chapter 

 in the economic history of France, in keeping with her national attitude 

 toward forests, has been the recognition of forestry and related land 

 problems as a special field for public initiative and development, together 

 with the value of "the armor of the forest" for stopping destructive 

 movements of soil and water. At the beginning of the Nineteenth Cen- 

 tury, a large section of southwestern France was menaced by the sand 

 dunes along the Gascon Coast. Various attempts to check this invasion 

 during the preceding century had been futile. Many of the dunes were 

 moving inland at rates varying from 30 to 100 feet a year, burying farms 

 and villages in their path. 



A successful method of combatting the dunes was finally evolved 



