454 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



timber, which, up to the moment of its sale, whether felled 

 or still standing, remains as security to the lender. In 

 how far it would be possible and advisable otherwise to 

 apply among ourselves the second power entrusted to the 

 State by the French Act of i860 — which is rather tentative 

 in character, as being applied on quite untried ground, 

 without any precedent for guidance — the power, that is, 

 of encouraging good forestry by gifts of money or of seed 

 and the like, it will be for our statesmen to consider. If 

 we could ensure an equivalent qnidproquo in the shape of 

 regulation forestry, it might be worth trying. 



Among our neighbours, both in France and in Germany, 

 in this matter as in others, Co-operation has been found 

 of some little^ — very little — use. There appears to be no 

 scope for that expedient among ourselves. For the con- 

 ditions necessary for such organisation are here wholly 

 wanting. We have not that host of small forest owners, 

 who abroad join their little forest areas together for collective 

 management. The associations previously spoken of as 

 existing in various countries — with the exception of the 

 French syndicats forestiers — likewise provide little guidance 

 for ourselves. For with the exception of the Danish — 

 which has quite dissimilar conditions to deal with — the 

 attention of those associations is above all things directed 

 to the improvement of mountain pasture, which has rudely 

 and ruinously encroached upon the forest standing by its 

 side. The policy pursued is, so to improve the pasture as 

 to make half the area now pastured over to suffice for the 

 needs of the commune — the other half being restored to 

 well-kept forest. Since the State in France under a standing 

 custom provides half the outlay required in such cases — the 

 local body being a party to the work — the financial task of 

 the association is limited to earning out of the improved 

 pasture the interest upon half the outlay which it has 

 generally succeeded in accomplishing. 



It may furthermore be mentioned that in France the 

 pupils of what are called scolaires forestieres — that is, village 

 forestry classes — have here and there been employed, as 

 part of their schooling, to plant seedlings on intended 



