1454 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



crty. It is significant of the importance attached to the 

 handling of public forests by the French that each forest 

 plan must not only be approved by the high council of 

 the Service des Eaux et Forets and by the Secretary of 

 Agriculture, but must also -be authorized by decree of 

 the President of the Republic. Board rules of manage- 

 ment are laid down by ordinances supplementing the 

 code itself. In administering the communal forests, the 

 highest monetary return is the main consideration. The 

 function of state forests, however, is declared to be the 

 supplying of national industries with the classes of prod- 

 ucts which they most need, particularly large timber 

 which may not be grown on communal and private forests 

 because it may not pay the highest returns. The purpose 

 of state forests is thus to supplement, as may be neces- 

 sary, the materials produced in the largest quantities by 

 communal or private owners with choice timber whose 

 growing is long and costly. As a matter of fact, these 

 distinctions have largely disappeared under the free work- 

 ing of economic laws in fixing the, price for various 

 classes of timber. 



The working plan for the state forest of Gerardmer, 

 one of the areas cut by the American engineers, illus- 

 trates the extremely interesting but simple technical 

 methods of the French service. This is a forest of fir, 

 spruce, and beech in the high Vosges. A revision of the 

 old plan had been made necessary by serious windfalls 

 and failure to cut the old timber at a sufficient rate (a 

 characteristic result of French conservatism). The new 

 plan begins with a resume of revenues during the past 

 twelve years,* including the lease of quarries and of 

 hunting and fishing privileges, the sale of tree seed and 

 seedlings, and rents from mountain meadows for pas- 

 turage. Then follows an exact estimate of the stumpage, 

 in two classes — large timber and immature or middle- 

 aged timber. The normal growing stock (to be main- 

 tained without diminution) is fixed at 350 cubic meters 

 per hectare, or about 29 thousand board feet per acre. 

 This figure is not based upon calculations for the forest 

 but upon general experience in forests of this type in the 

 Vosges. In the same way, the yearly growth of the 

 large timber is estimated at 5 per cent and of the smaller 

 timber at 2 per cent. By these simple methods, the annual 

 "ppssibilite," or permitted cut, is placed at about 785 

 board feet per acre, a figure which is to be exceeded for a 

 time in order to remove a surplus of old growth. 



The bulk of the plan is devoted to an exact description 

 of the various divisions of the forest, as marked out on 

 the ground, with the order in which they are to be cut 

 during the ensuing thirty years. The entire forest is to 

 be worked over in that interval under the selection 

 method, which consists essentially in removing the larger 

 trees to a number not exceding the prescribed limit each 

 year. The working plan terminates with a detailed allot- 

 ment of funds for maintenance and improvements during 

 the same period. These include the construction and 

 repair of roads, the upkeep of five state sawmills, plant- 

 ing designated blank areas, cutting out brush which is 



# These averaged about 73.5 francs per hectare yearly, or $5.75 per acre. 



covering young trees in places, and maintaining a small 

 fish hatchery. 



The French state service manufactures its own stump- 

 age to but a very limited extent. The lumber or logs, in 

 such cases, are sold at auction. The great bulk of public 

 timber is sold on the stump, following advertisement by 

 printed circulars specifying the exact areas where cutting 

 will be permitted and the estimated quantities to be re- 

 moved. The sales are made by lump sum for the marked 

 timber on a stated "coupe" at public auctions, in which the 

 crier begins by naming a price far in excess of the value of 

 the timber and then reduces it successively until he finds a 

 taker. The forest officers seldom scale the logs after cut- 

 ting, as is done in the National Forests of the United 

 States. This is a weak point in their system, both be- 

 cause of the speculative element in sales based upon esti- 

 mate only and because of the failure to obtain a definite 

 and authoritative check upon their estimates. 



As would be expected, the cutting is subject to ex- 

 tremely rigid rules enforced by heavy penalties. These 

 are standardized in published regulations and are so 

 thoroughly ingrained in the lumbering practice of the 

 country that little difficulty is experienced in their en- 

 forcement. One of their interesting features is the re- 

 quirement that operators furnish stated amounts for re- 

 pairing the roads used in logging, for the maintenance of 

 their splendid system of forest transportation is one of 

 the most jealously guarded features of administration. 

 The whole system of cutting in small lots scattered over a 

 forest in accordance with the requirements of its working 

 plan depends upon the highway system. As much as 

 three per cent of the purchase price may be exacted for 

 the upkeep of roads. 



The French administrative ordinances contain detailed 

 stipulations for secondary uses of public forests such as 

 the extraction of resin, the barking of cork oak, the 

 pasturing of grasslands, the operation of quarries, and 

 the removal of peat or of sand and earth for industrial 

 purposes. Such uses are permitted under a leasing system 

 operated by the forest service. The rights to sub-surface 

 minerals, however, are entirely distinct from the owner- 

 ship of the land; and their development is controlled by 

 a separate group of laws. These are applicable to all 

 forms of land ownership in the country and are of inter- 

 est to Americans in contrast with the mining laws of the 

 United States and the innumerable complexities which 

 they have interjected into our public land system. No 

 land owner in France has, per se, any title or claim to 

 subterranean mineral deposits ; and conversely the holder 

 of mining concessions has, in virtue of that fact, no 

 right to the surface of the land beyond the areas actually 

 used in his operations. 



The ownership of underground mineral resources is 

 vested in the French nation. The owner of the land may 

 prospect for minerals as he pleases and may concede 

 prospecting rights to others for any consideration which 

 he chooses. Prospecting privileges can be obtained by 

 outsiders on any land in France, regardless of its owner- 

 ship,, by administrative decree. Such decrees are issued 



