1452 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



7,870,000 acres of forest in France, not quite one-third 

 of her total forested area. 3,000,000 acres of this amount 

 are the property of the French nation and their manage- 

 ment sets the standards of public administration. The 

 history of these state forests reflects the ups and downs 

 of the fortunes of the French kings, of her political 

 upheavals, and of her changing economic theories. Large 

 forests in northern and eastern France were undoubtedly 

 properties of the Roman emperors and were held later 

 by the Frankish kings by personal right of conquest. The 

 later kings, as the first feudal lords of the realm, held 

 numerous forest domains usually burdened with old rights 

 of usage acquired by the 

 local rural communities. 

 Forest ownership, in fact, 

 became an attribute of 

 royalty and nobility and 

 was sought by the dominat- 

 ing classes of the feudal 

 and imperial regimes as a 

 bulwark of their prestige 

 in the state. It still carries 

 the stamp of social prestige 

 in the French provinces — 

 an inheritance from the 

 days when the possession 

 of large hunting preserves 

 was a coveted distinction of 

 the grand seigneur. In the 

 course of the centuries the 

 royal forests went through 

 numerous vicissitudes from 

 conques*:, marital transac- 

 tions, cessions to rebellious 

 or lukewarm nobles, and 

 grants to royal favorites. 

 Certain of them became in 

 time the property of the 

 state, others remaining in 

 the personal possession of 

 the reigning family. 



One of the first steps to- 

 ward the conservation of 

 public forests, which is of 

 special interest in view of 

 the seeming indifference of 

 the times toward the future, was the Edict of Moulins 

 in 1566, which declared that all forests owned either by 

 the state or by the king in his own right were inalienable 

 and — by inference — protected from prescription or seiz- 

 ure under any color of claim whatsoever. Although this 

 decree was often abused by the kings themselves, through 

 various fictitious engagements or contracts which amount- 

 ed to the alienation of public forests, it undoubtedly had 

 a conserving influence up to the time of the French 

 Revolution. 



With the outbreak of the Revolution, the royal forests 

 were declared to be the property of the state. A law of 

 1789, placing all church property at the disposition of 

 the nation, resulted in adding considerable areas of forest 



AT WORK IN OAK COPPICE 



Many of these French workers still in uniform are engaged in chonDinr 

 wood for fuel to aid in overcoming the coal famine in France this winter. 



to the public domain. Three years later the forests 

 owned by emigres of the old nobility were confiscated 

 by the state — but most of these were subsequently re- 

 stored to their former owners. The first effect of the 

 Revolution was toward the nationalization of forest re- 

 sources, but counter currents soon set in. In the reaction 

 from the abuses and usurpations of the seigneurs of 

 the old regime, the rural communes were encouraged 

 to take possession of forests under almost any pretext 

 based upon entailed rights or old claims. The confiscated 

 properties of the king did not escape, and the state lost 

 heavily from the inroads of the communes into its newly 



acquired forests. The Edict 

 of Moulins was also form- 

 ally repealed and large 

 areas of state forest were 

 sold outright under the in- 

 dividualistic economic 

 theory of the times. The 

 recorded sales of hardwood 

 forests in central and 

 northern France, for ex- 

 ample, probably the most 

 valuable part of the public 

 domain, aggregate 880,000 

 acres. It is significant that 

 every French Revolution 

 was followed by fresh dis- 

 posals of state forests. 

 From the Revolution of 

 1789 to the establishment 

 of the Third Republic, the 

 attitude of the French to- 

 ward their public domain 

 was strikingly similar to 

 that in the United States 

 during the period of active 

 disposal of its public lands. 

 Under the Third Repub- 

 lic, the policy of France has 

 turned definitely and ag- 

 gressively in the opposite 

 direction. Alienations of 

 national forests have been 

 restricted practically to 

 small areas granted to vari- 

 ous communes as a means of liquidating long-established 

 entailed rights, or privileges to take timber and fuel- 

 wood for domestic use. On the other hand, the state 

 forests have been enlarged by plantations in the sand 

 dunes and by the purchase and reforestation of moun- 

 tain areas in connection with projects for the control of 

 erosion. 



A most interesting phase of public forestry in France 

 and one of special suggestiveness to America is the com- 

 munal forest. The French commune is comparable to the 

 New England township — a self-governing, rural com- 

 munity of exact geographical limits. The feudal system 

 developed a peculiar solidarity of interests among the 

 members of these little communities. The system of 



