THE FOREST POLICY OF FRANCE— ITS VINDICATION 



1385 



area is forested, or about 23,455,000 acres. The three 

 million acres of state forests represent but 12 per cent 

 of this total while another 20 per cent, owned by com- 

 munes and other public agencies, is also under state 

 administration. The rest is in private hands. The be- 

 lief is common that the area of forests has been reduced 

 below the minimum essential to sustained national pros- 

 perity and there is a strong demand in many quarters for 

 extending the state forests, particularly in the mountain 

 regions in connection with the checking of erosion and 

 protection of water sources. But the results obtained by 

 painstaking care in handling the limited resources of 

 France are truly remarkable. Imagine a third of the 

 population of the United States crowded into an area less 

 than that of Texas and still supplying 70 per cent of their 



at the outbreak of the war amounted to 100 board feet 

 of lumber and half a cord of fuelwood from every acre 

 of forest land in France. 



This does not, however, tell the whole story of what 

 France has accomplished in forest conservation. Due 

 to the conservative temper of their race, forest owners, 

 public and private alike, have not cut as much as they 

 might; they have not used the full current revenue from 

 their timber capital. They had accumulated a surplus 

 by the outbreak of the war probably equal to four and 

 a half billion feet, or twice the usual yearly cut. This 

 surplus, together with the uniformly well-stocked and 

 productive condition of their forest lands, was a prime 

 element of national strength in the great struggle. The 

 longer the 20th Engineers operated in France, the more 



A MILL OF THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE IN THE DUNES OF SOUTHWESTERN FRANCE 



timber and all of their fuelwood from the current pro- 

 duction of their forest lands. 



Prior to the war, there were cut yearly from the forests 

 of France 2,250,000,000 feet of timber and 4,670,000 

 cords of fuelwood. In addition to these amounts, some 

 400,000,000 feet of timber and 167,000 cords of fuel were 

 obtained yearly from trees planted along roads and 

 canals, from farm hedges, and from the plantations of 

 poplar which are a common feature of farms throughout 

 central and northern France. It is probable that France 

 contained, in 1914, at least 150 billion feet of merchant- 

 able timber. The adequacy of her forest resources, 

 however, was judged — not by the quantity of stumpage 

 but by the current yield of forest land. The yearly cut 



timber their scouts located. Our early conceptions of 

 timber shortage in France were constantly revised up- 

 ward. The enormous demands of the allied armies could 

 have been met for one or two years longer without cut- 

 ting seriously into the growing stock of the country. 



The progress of France in forestry, like that of any 

 other country, is of course an intimate phase of her own 

 historical and economic evolution, the result of her pecu- 

 liar physical conditions and the racial characteristics of 

 her people. Its special interest to Americans lies in the 

 fact that it is not a policy created by imperial edict — 

 but the freely adopted regime of an intensively demo- 

 cratic and individualistic people. It would be futile to 

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