142 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



cause of "defrichenient," the owner of the land is liable 

 to a fine of from $35 to $115 per acre. He may also be 

 ordered by the Minister of Agriculture to reforest the 

 stripped area within a prescribed period. 



These penalties may be avoided by obtaining permis- 

 sion to denude forest land in advance. The procedure 

 is cumbersome, involving a declaration of intent by the 

 owner of the land, an examination of the area by forest 

 officers, reviews of the case by various administrative 

 officials, and final decision by the Minister of Agriculture. 

 The government may refuse permission to denude for- 

 ests only when their preservation is necessary to protect 

 stream flow, to prevent erosion or the shifting of sand, 

 or to safeguard the public health or national defense. 

 Many attempts have been made to include the timber 

 needs of the locality or of the country at large among the 

 reasons upon which the administration may refuse a war- 

 rant to destroy private forests; but none of them have 

 yet overcome the resistance to this invasion of the indi- 

 vidual liberty of the property owner. 



During the Nineteenth Century, the denudation of 

 about one and a quarter million acres of private timber- 

 land was authorized, mainly in the lowland hardwood 

 regions.* With its limited application, the practical value 

 of the law lies largely in its support of the efforts of 

 the government to prevent deforestation in the moun- 

 tains. It is of special interest to Americans, however, 

 because it illustrates the point of view of the French 

 toward their forests. A people fully as democratic and 

 liberty-loving as we are has infringed the rights of 

 private ownership more sharply in the case of forests 

 than any other kind of property. The significance of 

 this infringement can be appreciated only in a full under- 

 standing of the sacredness of private property in France. 

 The French have done this because they put forests in a 

 class by themselves. The public interests dependent upon 

 the forests of the country and the lapse of time required 

 to restore woodland once destroyed are, to the French, 

 sufficient grounds for imposing special burdens and obli- 

 gations upon owners of forests from which owners of 

 other forms of property are Scot free. 



On the constructive side, the special and distinctive 

 public value of forests is recognized in their taxation. 

 Forest plantations on mountain ..lopes or summits and on 

 sand dunes or other barrens are exempted from taxes for 

 a period of 30 years. When cultivated land is planted 

 with trees, three-fourths of the taxes are remitted during 

 the first 30 years. When land is planted which has lain 

 fallow for a considerable time, the law provides that 

 there shall be no increase in the assessed value, or rated 

 income, of the ground for a like period. Aside from 

 these exemptions, private forests in France are taxed 

 on their current income, a method which dates back to 

 the Revolutionary period. Under the law of 1907, a 

 valuation commission periodically classifies the lands in 

 all forms of culture, commune by commune, in accord- 

 ance with their relative productivity. There may thus 



* These records go back only to 1828. Large additional areas were 

 authorized between 1828 and 1803, when the first law was enacted. Many 

 forests were also destroyed between 1791 and 1803 when no permits were 

 required. 



be three or four types of forest, as determined by their 

 soil and timber species and the value of their products. 

 A net yearly income is then obtained for average areas 

 within each type. All forest properties shown on the 

 official survey and plats of the commune are thus classi- 

 fied and a net income, based upon the sample tracts 

 studied, is assigned to each. 



The periodic revenues customary in French forests, 

 where nearly all properties harvest some products every 

 few years, are, under this system, reduced to an annual 

 basis which represents the net returns for stumpage after 

 deducting costs of upkeep, fire protection, forest guards, 

 thinnings, planting blanks, and other cultural measures. 

 The tax is levied upon this net income and usually 

 amounts to 8 or 10 per cent, about half of which goes 

 to the central government. The rest comprises the de- 

 partmental and communal taxes and levies for local 

 roads. It is of interest to note that French forest owners 

 are demanding a straightout yield tax levied upon forest 

 products when actually cut, the same principle which 

 is generally regarded as the basis for forest tax reforms 

 in the United States. 



While the tax system is a distinct aid to private for- 

 estry in France as compared with American conditions, 

 it is probable that the greatest public encouragement to 

 the private owner to keep his timberland productive has 

 been the stimulus and example of the publicly owned 

 forests. These are scattered through practically every 

 section of the country. In every forest region, the private 

 owner has seen good forestry practice demonstrated for 

 scores of years on state or communal holdings. He 

 knows the forest officers in his locality and consults 

 them on the methods applicable to his own woodland. 

 The widely distributed public forests have not only set 

 the standards of good management but have made the 

 local silviculture a part of the farm lore of the region. 

 The rural population of France knows how to grow trees 

 just as they know how to grow potatoes or care for their 

 vineyards. One day I met a wooden-shod peasant boy 

 in the Landes who told me all about the handling of 

 their pineries from thinning out the over-dense stands of 

 young trees through the various stages in turpentining 

 to the cutting of the timber. It was all part of his daily 

 life. The educational value of her public forests has, in 

 my judgment, done more to stimulate private forestry in 

 France than any other public activity. 



The French government has made special efforts in 

 recent years to extend this educational influence by- 

 various forms of co-operation with private forest owners. 

 Special recognition is given by law to associations of 

 forest owners who desire to act collectively in the pro- 

 tection or management of their properties. And, by a 

 law, passed in 1913, the expert services of the State are 

 offered, at cost, to owners of timberland who wish to cut 

 their holdings on a conservative basis corresponding to 

 the requirements of the "regime forestier" and to obtain 

 the special forms of protection against trespass now 

 accorded to public holdings by the forest code. This law 

 is of too recent origin to have yet demonstrated its value, 



