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remunerative agricultural crops ; and it is, therefore, genei'ally speaking, out of 

 place to keep rich fertile valleys under forests, which ought rather to be main- 

 tained on ground which cannot be profitably cultivated. In well populated 

 districts, matters naturally tend to settle themselves in this manner ; the better 

 classes of ground being brought under the plough, while every acre of the rest of 

 the country is kept wooded, in order to meet the domestic and agricultural wants 

 of a dense population. But it is otherwise in less favored localities. Here vast 

 areas might be devoted to the production of wood ; but while, from the nature of 

 the case, the local consumption is, in such places, very small, the absence of com- 

 munications frequently renders export very difficult. Hence wood has but a very 

 small value, and the forests tend to disappear gradually before the excessive 

 grazing to which they are subjected ; for the population of such regions, being 

 unable to make its living by agriculture, is, generally speaking, driven to adopt a 

 pastoral life. 



Forests grow in France at all altitudes up to about 9,000 to 9,500 feet above 

 the sea, a much larger proportion of them being found at low than at high levels. 

 Thus it has been calculated that, if the country were divided into altitude-zones 

 of 200 meters each (656 feet), the lowest zone would contain 36 per cent, of the 

 forests, while the highest would not contain more than .04 per cent, of them ; the 

 fifth zone (2,600 to 3,300 feet) w T ould, however, on account of the extensive 

 plateaus existing at this level, contain more than the fourth. Forests situated at 

 high altitudes do not produce so much wood, and are, therefore, not so profitable 

 as those grown lower down ; consequently the private owners, who have done 

 their best to preserve their woods in the plains and low hills have, in the majority 

 of cases, allowed the mountain forests they once possessed to be destroyed by 

 over grazing Hence it arises that, while at altitudes below 4,000 feet, the pro- 

 portion of State and communal forests is comparatively small, hardly any private 

 woods are found above the level of 6,000 feet, such forests as exist there being, 

 generally speaking, maintained by the State or communes in the public interest, 

 as a protection against avalanches and the formation of torrents. The private 

 forests are then, taken as a whole, more favorably situated than those which 

 belong to the State and the communes, both as regards soil, climate, means of 

 export, and proximity to the markets. It has been calculated that the distribution 

 of the forest area by zones of altitude is thus proportioned : 



