PRIVATE FORESTRY IN FRANCE 



141 



200 or 240 years to mature but is actually harvested in 

 small quantities at every periodic cutting. ' A large forest 

 property is split up into lots or compartments, contain- 

 ing sprouts or timber of different ages. Some material 

 is harvested every year or at least at intervals of every 

 4 or 5 years. There is thus an actual current revenue 

 proportioned to the size of the whole investment ; and the 

 problem of accrued carrying charges, which is so burden- 

 some to the owner of undeveloped timber in the United 

 States, scarcely exists in France. 



Forestry as a commercial business is most highly de- 

 veloped in the pineries of the Landes, where the low 

 value of the land and the combined yields of naval 

 stores and timber make it exceptionally profitable. Net 

 returns of 6 per cent on the investments in southern 

 pineries are not uncommon. Here also the revenue is 

 practically continuous. The larger properties contain 

 blocks of timber of varying ages ; and, aside from a steady 

 return from turpentine orcharding, realize every few 

 years upon a small ^ 



cut of stumpage. 



The great bulk 

 of the French for- 

 ests are in separate 

 hands from the 

 timber using in- 

 dustries. This, in 

 my judgment, is a 

 factor of impor- 

 tance in their con- 

 servative manage- 

 ment. The forest 

 is not the tail of 

 the sawmill, but is 

 relatively independ- 

 ent of the sawmill. 

 Such would be the 

 inevitable tendency 

 in a country where timber is scarce and dear. The forest 

 owner determines the amount and location of the stump- 

 age which he wishes to cut from year to year. Foresters 

 or forest rangers are employed on all of the larger prop- 

 erties, and the cutting area is selected, marked, and esti- 

 mated by them. The timber is then advertised, as a rule, 

 and sold at auction for the highest lump sum offered. The 

 sawmills are uniformly small and most of them are port- 

 able. In the eastern mountains and other regions of ex- 

 tensive forests, there are many little stationary mills, 

 driven by steam or water power, which obtain their logs 

 from the yearly cuttings on any one of a dozen or more 

 forest properties in their vicinity. Logs are hauled by ox 

 teams, in full tree lengths, for distances up to 15 or 20 

 miles to these little mills. In the level pineries of the 

 south, a light steam tractor of the "locomobile" type, 

 operating a little band saw 3 or 4 inches wide, is almost 

 universal. These little mills roam about the Landes, 



CAMOUFLAGED ROAD THROUGH A FRENCH 



AND VARENNES 



This restriction does not apply to planted woods under 21 years in 

 age or to trees within enclosed parks or gardens adjoining dwellings. 

 The destruction of other areas up to 25 acres without warrant is permitted 

 only in the case of isolated patches of forest which are not situated on 

 the slopes or summits of mountains. 



picking up a few hundred cubic meters of timber here 

 and there, sawing it into boards, and then passing on, 

 leaving neat, triangular cribs of lumber to be hauled out 

 by the two-wheeled mule carts of the region whenever it 

 has seasoned sufficiently. 



In a word, the lumber manufacturing industry has 

 grown up upon and adapted itself to a system of forest 

 management which permits but small cuttings at any one 

 place in any one year or series of years. Cases are rare 

 when the well being and permanence of the forest are 

 sacrificed to the requirements of a manufacturing enter- 

 prise an exact opposite of the situation so common in 

 the United States where the manufacturer owns the 

 timber and has denuded one forest region after another 

 in order to supply his large, stationary mills to their 

 maximum capacity. While this relation is largely a result 

 rather than a cause of the economic status of private 

 forestry in France, it indicates the industrial adjustments 

 which will become necessary in America as our emphasis 



shifts from supply- 

 ing sawmills to 

 growing timber. 



The public policy 

 of France toward 

 her private forests 

 is an interesting 

 c o m p r omise be- 

 tween the restric- 

 tions of the impe- 

 rial regime and the 

 present day spirit 

 of personal liberty. 

 Under the Louis' 

 the use and treat- 

 ment of privately 

 owned timberland 

 were very closely 

 regulated even to 

 the marking of the trees which might be cut, by the king's 

 foresters in some instances. This maze of harsh and 

 burdensome restrictions was wiped out by the French 

 Revolution, and for a considerable period private forest 

 owners cut or destroyed as they chose. Then Nineteenth 

 Century France, confronted with a shortage of fuel and 

 lumber and awakened to the flood menace from her 

 denuded mountains, reacted toward the old conceptions 

 of restraint but only to the limited degree that the in- 

 trenched individualism of the republican era would per- 

 mit. Under the law of 1859, which has been modified 

 but little since enactment, the private forest owner is still 

 free to cut his timber as he chooses ; but he is responsible 

 to the state not to uproot or destroy any forest area in 

 excess of 25 acres without permission in advance.* Viola- 

 tions of this law are judged solely by the condition of the 

 land, by the fact that forest denudation has actually taken 

 place. Whether the disappearance of the forest resulted 

 from the method of cutting, from over-grazing, from fire, 

 or from deliberate clearing for tillage is immaterial. So 

 is the intent or good faith of the owner. Whatever the 



FOREST BETWEEN CLERMONT 



