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less than one-fifth of the high forest is treated by the selection method, three - 

 fourths of the communal forest are so treated. In mountainous regions, where, 

 as has just been said, the greater part of the communal high-forest is found, the 

 selection method possesses incontestable advantages, in consequence of the continu- 

 ous cover which it affords to the soil ; but although the respective merits of the 

 two methods, as applied to coniferous forests situated in such regions, are much 

 disputed at present, there has of late years been an undoubted tendency to return 

 to selection, which has for some time past fallen into discredit, and, taking the 

 State and communal forests together, somewhat more than one-half of the total 

 area of their high forest is now treated in this manner. 



Two variations of simple coppice are sometimes practised, (1) that known 

 in the Ardennes as sartage, in which, after the wood has been cut and removed, 

 the twigs and chips are burnt on the ground, in order that their ashes may give 

 to the soil sufficient manure to permit of the growth of a crop of cereals during 

 the year immediately following the cutting. This system, which, as carried out 

 in France, seems to be practised rather for the sake of obtaining the crop of corn 

 han as a method of forest culture, is gradually dying out. It is not adopted in the 

 areas under the State forest department. (2) That known as furetage, in which 

 instead of clean cutting the coppice, those shoots only are taken which have 

 attained to certain fixed dimensions, the operation being repeated annually, or after 

 intervals varying from two to five years. Furetage prevails chiefly in the valley 

 of the Seine, in the forests from which the fuel supply of Paris is drawn ; but it 

 is also employed in the mountainous districts of the south, in the case of forests 

 maintained for the protection of steep slopes, which it is undesirable to denude 

 entirely. 



It it is impossible here to enter into anything like full details regarding 

 these sylvicultural questions. To study them completely, as they are taught and 

 practised in Frence, reference must be made to the books on the subject, among 

 which may be mentioned " The Manual of Sylviculture," by G. Bagneris, (trans- 

 lated into English by Messrs. Fernandez and Smythies), Ryder & Son. London ; 

 and " Le traitement des bois en France," by C. Broillard, Berger-Levrault, Paris, 



WORKING PLANS. 



Working plans or schemes, will, in course of time, be prepared for all forests 

 administered by the forest department. The law provides that all these forests 

 shall be subjected to the provisions of such plans, and that no fellings which are 

 not provided for therein, and no extraordinary cuttings, either from the communal 

 reserve, or in the blocks destined to grow from coppice to high forest, shall be 

 made without the express sanction, in each case, of the government, by whom all 

 plans must be approved before they can be adopted. 



Subject to due provisions being made for the exercise of rights of user, the 

 working plan provides for the management of the forest in the way that will best 

 serve the interests of the proprietor. Unlike an agricultural crop, which ripens 

 and is gathered annually, trees take many years to grow to a marketable size,, 

 the actual period that they require being dependant not only on their species and 

 the natural conditions under which they are grown, as climate, soil, etc., but also 

 on the use to which they are to be put. Thus a coppice being required to yield 

 wood of small size only, may be cut every twenty-five to forty years, whereas a 

 high forest, which is destined to produce large timber, must stand for a much 

 longer time. It would be excessively inconvenient if the entire crop of such a 

 forest were felled only once in every 100 or 150 years; and it is chiefly to avoid 

 this that a working plan is required, which prescribes the arrangement necessary 



