716 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



facturing chiefly lumber. Throughout the country 

 also are local industries manufacturing a great 

 vavriety of articles of wood used in every day life. 

 Among the larger wood-using industries are those 

 manufacturing vehicles and farm implements. Some of 

 these are on a large scale, bringing in material from 

 considerable distances. Others are on a small scale, 

 comparable to the small wagon maker of this country. 

 The manufacture of barrels and casks in France is of 

 great importance, especially to take care of the large 

 annual wine crop. Furniture and cabinet shops are 

 found in nearly all large towns and in many small ones. 

 Some factories manu- 

 facture musical instru- 

 ments, others packing 

 boxes and containers 

 in great variety. Quan- 

 tities of wood are used 

 also in the manufacture 

 of wooden shoes and 

 wooden soles and heels. 

 Fully 52,000 people 

 have been employed 

 in the wooden shoe 

 industry alone. The 

 building of ships 

 and boats is more 

 localized than the fore- 

 going industries, but 

 consumes each year 

 large amounts of lum- 

 ber of high grade. The 

 forests furnish ma- 

 terial also for the 

 manufacture of paper 

 at certain industrial 

 centers, though a con- 

 siderable percentage of 

 the total wood pulp 

 used has to be im- 

 ported. 



The industries men- 

 tioned in the foregoing 

 paragraphs are those 

 which consume wood 

 material in large quan- 

 tities and employ the 

 most men who are ex- 

 clusively wood and 

 forest workers. In ad- 

 dition there are thou- 

 sands of small wooden- 

 ware factories and a multitude of home industries that 

 use wood. Great quantities of toys, fans, paper knives, 

 brushes, spoons, handles, spindles, funnels and boxes of 

 various kinds are turned out by the peasant workman 

 all over France. Wood is obtained from the nearby 

 forests and mills, the peasant workers having their 

 own lathes which they use at odd times. 



Photograph by Underwood and Underwood 



A SKELETON FOREST 

 Like bare and whitened bones lying by the roadside is this forest in Flanders, 



devastated by artillery and small-arm 

 path is marked by ruin and wreck 



For example, in the wooded regions of the Perche 

 and the Maine (northwestern France) there are all sorts 

 of wood-using industries which are maintained as a 

 result of communal possession of the woods. Near the 

 forest of Perseigne there is a small town, Fresnaye, 

 near Alencon, which is entirely peopled with workers 

 in wood. "There is not one house in this town," Ardouin 

 Dumazet writes, "in which wooden goods would not be 

 manufactured. Some years ago there was little variety 

 in their produce ; spoons, salt-boxes, shepherds' boxes, 

 scales, various wooden pieces for weavers, flutes and 

 hautboys, spindles, wooden measures, funnels and 



wooden bowls were 

 only made. But Paris 

 wanted to have a thou- 

 sand things in which 

 wood was combined 

 with iron ; mouse- 

 traps, c 1 o a k-p e g s, 

 spoons for jam, brooms 

 * * *. And now every 

 house has a workshop 

 containing either a 

 turning-lathe, or some 

 machine -tools for 

 working wood, for 

 making lattice-w o r k, 

 and so on * * *. 

 Quite a new industry 

 was born, and the most 

 coquettish things are 

 now manufactured. 

 Owing to this indus- 

 try the population is 

 happy. The earnings 

 are not very high, but 

 each worker owns his 

 house and garden, and 

 occasionally a bit of 

 field." 



The basket trade 

 flourishes in various 

 parts of France. It is 

 an important cottage 

 industry. Thus, in 

 one locality practically 

 every one is a basket 

 maker and all the 

 basket makers belong 

 to a co-operative socie- 

 ty. There are no em- 

 ployers; all the pro- 

 duce is brought once a fortnight to the cooperative stores 

 and there it is sold for the association. About 150 families 

 belong to it, and each owns a house and some vineyards. 

 One of the striking illustrations of the close depend- 

 ence of local prosperity to the forest is found in the Pine 

 plains of southwestern France. Here is grown the Mari- 

 time Pine that has made France second only to the United 



fire. Thus wherever the Hun passed, the 



