129 



Taking the average of the last three years for which the accounts have been 

 .audited, it is found that the receipts, expenditures, and surplus of the State 

 forests were as follows, viz.: 



Revenue 1,297,748 = 10s. 6d. per acre. 



Expenditure 571,347= 4 



Surplus 726,401= 5s. lid. per acre. 



But if the money spent on the afforestation of mountain slopes and dunes, 

 and on the purchase of additional areas, be excluded, the expenditure on the 

 existing forests is reduced to about 480,000, and the surplus is raised to 6s. 8d. 

 per acre. The actual profit is indeed slightly more than this ; for the figures 

 include both expenditure by the State on the management of the communal 

 forests, and the contributions paid by the cummunes on this account. The 

 receipts are supposed to cover the payments, but the} 7 rarely do so, and some 

 allowance may be made for this fact when calulating the net profits derived from 

 the State forests, which, during the years referred to, probably fell little short o 

 7s. an acre. Recent information relating to the receipts, expenditures and surplus 

 resulting from the working of the communal forests is not available. 



The latest year for which full details regarding the gross revenue per acre 

 of the State and communal forests are obtainable is 1876, when the figures were 

 as follows, viz. : 



The revenue from the State forests was then, in 1376, considerably higher 

 than that above given as the average of the last three years ; and this was due 

 to two causes, of which the first is the exceptionally large number of windfalls 

 wllich occurred in that year, and the second the comparatively high rates which 

 timber than realized. All but a small fraction of the revenue on the principal 

 produce was obtained by the sale of wood arid tanning bark, cork being pro- 

 duced only in the forests near the Mediterranean and in Corsica and resin 

 almost exclusively on the shores of the south-west. The figures relating to the 

 State forests show the results of actual sales, but this is not so in the case of 

 communal forests, as a large proportion of the produce from them is made over 

 to the inhabitants for their own use, and its value is estimated at a low rate, in 

 order to keep down the amount of their contribution for the services of the 

 State forest department, which is levied in proportion to the sum of their gross 

 revenue and the value of the wood delivered to them. In addition to this it 

 should be said that the revenue on minor produce shows cash receipts only, no 

 credit being taken for the payments made chiefly in the communes by means of 

 days' work done in the forests. These circumstances account to some extent for 

 the smaller revenue obtained from the communal forests ; but the true explana- 

 tion of this result is to be found in the important influence exercised by the 

 system of culture adopted. In 1876 it was observed that the highest rate of 

 gross revenue was obtained from high-forest, and the lowest from simple coppice, 

 while coppice under standards occupied an intermediate place. It was also found 

 9 (p.) 



