52 



FOREST STATISTICAL DATA 



A comparison of the ten most heavily forested departments with those 

 least timbered is given below: 



TABLE 6. MOST HEAVILY AND THE LEAST FORESTED DEPARTMENTS 



An analysis of the heavily forested departments discloses that two were 

 sand wastes (like parts of Minnesota and Michigan) but were reforested; 

 five are mountainous, or very hilly; and two are hilly or too wet for agri- 

 culture. The least forested departments are largely agricultural land or 

 moors. When it is considered that the final use of this land has been 

 evolved after centuries of settlement, the present-day use is significant, 

 and it is especially noteworthy that there is to-day much land growing 

 timber which is suitable for agriculture, yet the French Forest Code 

 recognizes that it is in the public interest to retain the land now under 

 forest for the production of timber, even where it could grow agricultural 

 crops. 



Analysis of General Statistics. General The following facts are 

 shown by Tables 3 to 6: (a) Out of 24.5 million acres of forest land less 

 than one-third is under technical forest management. (6) Less than 5 

 per cent of the entire forest area is unproductive. A larger proportion of 

 State and communal forest land is unproductive because the State and 

 communes own most of the mountain slopes requiring conservative cut- 

 ting, and where considerable areas cannot support tree growth, (c) More 

 than two-thirds of the private forests are treated under coppice, or coppice- 

 under-standards; less than one-half of one per cent of this area is being 

 converted into high forest. Only two-fifths of French forests are under 

 high forest, (d) The total annual production of French forests is esti- 

 mated at 1,917,756,000 feet board measure and 4,664,379 cords of fuel. 



State Forests. According to the original statistics on State forests: 



