THE FOREST CODE AND THE REGIME FORESTIER 



1455 



upon the recommendation of the public Engineer of 

 Mines and after the owner of the land has been given a 

 hearing. They are usually limited to a period of two 

 years and provide indemnities to the owner for injuries 

 to the surface of the property. Mining concessions, fol- 

 lowing a mineral discovery, are awarded by decree of 

 the State Council. The procedure for obtaining them is 

 a complicated one. Hearings must be given to the owner 

 of the land and to adverse claimants of the discovery; a 

 detailed investigation of the merits of the discovery must 

 be made by the National Department of Mines ; and many 

 restrictions as to the proximity of mining operations to 

 buildings, enclosures, etc., must be observed. The owner 

 of the land has no preferential rights to mining conces- 

 sions ; his claim, if one is made, must be based upon 

 priority of discovery. The terms of each decree fix the 



It has often been used as an argument against the aliena- 

 tion of public forests and in support of legislation for 

 retaining public control of forest areas in one form or 

 another. Although the wooden frigate has disappeared 

 from the seas, the special provisions of law designed 

 for its protection still hold. Representatives of the navy 

 may put their special mark on any trees included in sales 

 of public timber, which are needed for naval construc- 

 tion. The purchaser of the "coupe" must then cut and 

 limb these trees without reimbursement. The navy takes 

 possession of them in place and buys them from the 

 Forest Administration under a scale of prices which is 

 fixed from time to time by a special commission. 



The most complicated and, in certain respects, the most 

 significant features of the forest code of France are its 

 penal provisions. As I have pointed out before, zeal for 



GATHERING FUELWOOD IN A FRENCH FOREST 



WJurtas in the United States the removal of slashings after cutting of timber is an item of cost to the lumberman, in France people pay for the 

 privilege of going into forests after a cutting in order to gather fagots. Gathering and sale of fuelwood is a regular industry. 



duration of the mining concessions and the indemnities 

 to be paid to the owner of the surface. These, in princi- 

 ple, are equivalent to double the normal income from the 

 portion of the land which the mining concessionaire will 

 occupy. 



The old solicitude for an adequate supply of large 

 timber for the French navy has an interesting survival in 

 modern French legislation, although the practical neces- 

 sity for it has largely disappeared. It recalls the days 

 when the broad arrow of the English king was stamped 

 upon the finest trees in the forests of New England. 

 Dating from the forest legislation drafted by Colbert in 

 1669, the assurance of an abundant supply of large timber 

 for the navy has figured largely in French forest policy. 



forest conservation in France has resulted in carrying 

 over into her modern penal code many of the harsh and 

 arbitrary provisions of the "ancien regime." A fixed 

 schedule of fines and imprisonments is applicable to viola- 

 tions of the forest code upon the sole verification of the 

 fact that an offense has been committed. Considerations 

 of good faith or mitigating circumstances are excluded. 

 This rigorous protection of the public forests is taken 

 almost bodily from Colbert's ordinance drafted in the 

 middle of the seventeenth century and has resisted every 

 attempt at sweeping revision because of the deep-seated 

 conviction in France that forests stand apart from other 

 matters of public concern and require extra legal meas- 

 ures for their preservation.. 



