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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



crops, we recognize first of all the fact that France is a 

 wood-importing country ; and hence that the timber 

 grown in her forests not only has a high value but is 

 very closely utilized as compared with standards in the 

 United States. The hardwood coppice, or sprouts, which 

 furnish the bulk of the wood fuel of the country and 

 were cut over enormous areas to keep the American 

 Army warm, have an average value on the stump of 

 probably $4.00 per cord. The value of a fuel crop grown 

 on a well managed forest in 20 years ranges from $50 

 to $60 an acre as it stands in the woods ; and an additional 

 stumpage return is usually realized from the small brush 

 or fagot wood. The stumpage values of the principal 

 timber trees of France averaged, in 1917, at least five 

 times the prevailing prices of similar species in the 

 United States. Maritime pine stumpage in the Landes, 

 comparable to rather low grade shortleaf pine in the 

 southern states, sold for around $26 per thousand board 

 feet. The oak timber of all grades, bought by our Army 

 in the Loire River Valley and in the upper watershed 

 of the Marne, probably averaged $36 per thousand board 

 feet on the stump. The silver fir and spruce which we 

 obtained in the Vosges and Jura Mountains, timber aver- 

 aging 6 or 8 logs to the thousand feet, cost about $50 

 per thousand standing in the forest ; but in buying selected 

 piling we sometimes exceeded $90 per thousand board 

 feet. And do not overlook the fact that these prices 

 were obtained for stumpage grown as thick as the species 

 and class of product permit in forests where no ground 

 is wasted; and that they apply to all parts of the tree 

 which can be utilized under the most intensive manu- 

 facturing standards. 



The prices quoted are war-time rates, probably 75 

 per cent more than the stumpage values existing in 

 1914. On a pre-war comparison, however, the disparity 

 between timber values in France and in the United 

 States is very great. This difference is due not only to 

 the shortage of supply and the necessity of importing a 

 third of the lumber which the country uses. Low con- 

 version costs due to the accessibility of the forests and 

 particularly to the very low wages paid to forest labor 

 are an important factor. The average French logger and 

 mill-hand received probably five francs, or less than one 

 dollar, per day in 1917, and this was considerably more 

 than he was paid prior to the war. The simple and 

 primitive methods of manufacture, by small, local mills, 

 with almost no investment or overhead charges, are rela- 

 tively inexpensive. With lumber values the country 

 over influenced by the price of stock imported from the 

 Baltic or other outside sources, with keen competition 

 for all stumpage put upon the market, the standing 

 timber gains the benefit of the low costs of manufacture. 

 The stumpage owner holds the whip-hand. Hence the 

 situation in the United States, where manufacturing cost 

 is the chief element in the mill price of lumber, is largely 

 reversed in France. The standing tree often claims a 

 third or more of the selling price of its products. 



The presence of large areas of non-agricultural land 

 in France is a second economic basis for her private 



forestry. Her eastern mountain belt, extending from the 

 Vosges to the Mediterranean Sea, her rugged Central 

 Plateau, the northern slope of the Pyrenees, the south- 

 western sand planes, and the chopped-up hills in the 

 upper reaches of the Marne and Seine contain a large 

 aggregate of land fit only for forest or grazing. Inten- 

 sive use of such areas is an economic necessity in a 

 country so densely populated, and the bulk of her private 

 forests are found in these non-agricultural regions. They 

 are not limited, however, to areas too poor for cultiva- 

 tion. The economic balance between forest and farm 

 crops has shifted at various periods in French history. 

 At the time of the Revolution, the country was short of 

 agricultural products, especially cereals; and a large 

 acreage of forest was put in tillage. Fifty or sixty years 

 later, the pendulum swung back. Shortage of farm 

 labor appears to have been the immediate cause. At all 

 events, many rural proprietors in central and northern 

 France, finding their fields lying fallow year after year, 

 resorted to tree planting. There has been no important 

 change since that time with probably a slight tendency 

 in later years to increase the farm area at the expense 

 of the forest. 



We in the United States follow the inflexible rule that 

 the farm must always be given right of way over the 

 forest; and doubtless that is the safest guide in our 

 present stage of development. The economic growth of 

 France has carried her beyond such broad assumptions. 

 The demand for wheat and the profit in growing it com- 

 pared with the demand for timber and fuel and the 

 profit in growing these products are the considerations 

 which govern. The area devoted to forest is fixed by the 

 balance struck over comparatively long periods of time 

 between all the economic necessities of the country ; 

 and that balance has not thus far limited her forests, 

 either publicly or privately owned, to non-agricultural 

 lands. This sort of readjustment is already impending 

 in some of the older parts of the United States. 



While such economic factors are at the bottom, we 

 cannot understand private forestry in France aright 

 without considering the conservative temper of her peo- 

 ple, their contentment with comparatively low returns, 

 their instinctive resistance to change in the accustomed 

 order, so unlike the restless American, and that aesthetic 

 value universally accorded to their forests. I have al- 

 ready referred to the social prestige carried by forest 

 ownership. Many forests have been preserved as a 

 beautiful setting for a chateau or as hunting grounds, 

 their financial returns being a secondary consideration. 

 Large areas of woodland, on the other hand, are held 

 as safe, long-term investments. The vast fortunes of 

 the Rothschild family include a number of large forests 

 in central and northern France. Forest properties are 

 highly regarded as stable securities for the investment 

 of family or institutional funds. Well managed oak and 

 beech forests yield net revenues of from 2*4 to 4 per 

 cent. Such forests furnish a crop of coppice fuel wood 

 every 20 or 25 years and at the same time usually carry 

 an over story of high-grade timber, which may require 



