RECLA1\IATI0N OF WASTE LAND. 441 



enlarged area, during an incomparably longer period, and 

 with infinitely more local knowledge, frankly admits : cntrc 

 Ics deux systcmcs {Ic fraufais ct Vallemand) Ic second parait 

 presenter le plus d'avantage, si non pour Ic profit immediat, 

 du moins pour Ic rcmplacement et la conservation des forets. 

 He goes on to pronounce the Alsatian forests under the 

 present (German) management les mieux administres et 

 les plus productifs in Europe. The Germans are, in 

 this matter, as in all others, pure utilitarians. They will 

 mercilessly block up, as I have found in the forests of the 

 Vosges, the most picturesque vistas with a barrier of trees. 

 But their forests show remarkable evenness of growth, they 

 are duly thinned and not thinned too much. They are 

 " clean "—without underwood. And underwood is, in 

 the present day, certainly mere weeds. You can, as one 

 expert witness stated before the Forestry Committee, in these 

 forests look along their rows between the boles for a long 

 distance. The forest land is well stocked, carefully stocked, 

 but not overstocked. As far as is possible, every foot of 

 land is made to yield its proper return. Mr. Munro Fer- 

 guson told the Forestry Committee of forest land in Prince 

 Bismarck's " Sachsenwald " — part of the home of our 

 forbears, who gave it its name — which was by clever manage- 

 ment raised in value from 3s. to 50s. per acre. That was 

 owing to the development of the wood-pulp industry. The 

 increase is not everywhere as great. But in any case the 

 most that is to be got out of the land is so got. You may 

 trust a German forester for that. You notice the difference 

 between French and German forestry very clearly in a 

 frontier district like that of the Vosges, the loss of the forest 

 treasures on which French patriots and economists plain- 

 tively bewailed, as well they might, in 1871. France lost 

 to Germany by that war, according to the testimony of 

 M. Grad, who knew his native Alsace to the last square 

 inch, one-ninth of its forest property in extent, and one- 

 sixth in value — which is now worth a good deal more. 

 On the French side you observe a good deal of insufficient 

 thinning — and it is the same at Brotonne in Normandy 

 as at Le Breuil in Lorraine — and accordingly the lower 



