142 



* Exclusive of two forest officers who have been removed from the active list as professors and three 

 professors who are not forest officers. 



THE CENTRAL OFFICES AT PARIS. 



Since 1877 the forest department has been under the Minister of Agriculture 

 instead of, as formerly, under the Minister of Finance. And the change has 

 proved a most beneficial one ; for the forests are now regarded more from the 

 point of view of their utility in augmenting the general prosperity of the country, 

 than from that of the money revenue they can be made to yield ; and they are 

 no longer looked upon as available for sale whenever the low state of the exchequer 

 may seem to suggest this course, which was not seldom in olden days. The 

 Minister of Agriculture is the president, and the director of the forest department 

 is the vice-president, of a council of administration formed by the eight inspectors- 

 general, which considers all questions submitted for the orders of government. 

 The central office is divided into seven sections, each of which deals with certain 

 branches of the work, and is presided over by an inspector-in-charge, who is- 

 assisted by two or three other forest officers and a number of clerks. 



Ordinary duties in the forests. The unit of administrative charge is the 

 division (inspection) which is held by an inspector ; but for purposes of executive 

 management this charge is split up into sub-divisions (cantonments), under 

 assistant or sub-assistant-inspectors, who are also at the disposal of the inspector 

 for any special work that he may require of them. Occasionally, when the 

 division is a small one, the inspector himself holds charge of a sub-division. The 

 divisions are grouped into conservatorships, and these again into six circles 

 (regions') each of the latter being assigned to an inspector-general. The forests, 

 State and communal, managed by the forest department are 11,508 square miles 

 in extent, and they are divided into 414 sub-divisions, 192 divisions, and thirty- 

 five conservatorships ; consequently, the average area of each of these charges'is 

 as follows, viz., sub-division, twenty-eight square miles ; division, sixty square 

 miles ; conservatorship, 329 square miles. The average area of an inspector- 

 general's circle extends over 1,918 square miles. 



The sub-divisional officer is essentially an out-of-doors man, who personally 

 directs all work going on within the limits of his charge, in accordance with the 

 instructions given to him by the inspector, whose assistant he is, and who can at 

 his discretion employ him on special duties outside his sub-division. The divisional 

 officer is the manager of the forest estates. He prepares projects for the various. 



