1904 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



359 



PLANTATION OF BEACH GRASS AND PITCH PINE ON CAPE COD FOR THE FIXATION OF THE 



SOIL. 



Iii like manner the cooperation of 

 different social and political forces was 

 essential to the result. The tenure of 

 lands in this region consisted of several 

 elements, to wit : 



1. The supreme national tenure 

 what we term the right of eminent do- 

 mainwhich applies to all the lands of 

 France, and may be exercised with or 

 without ousting private ownership. 

 This secures to the government the right 

 to supervise and regulate the planting 

 of the maritime pine by the officers of 

 the department of roads and bridges, so 

 as to secure the best results by making 

 each proprietor's cooperation contribute 

 to the success of all. This power is 

 seldom exercised except by way of sug- 

 gestion. 



2. Feoffage, or the relation which sub- 

 sisted between the feudal lord and the 

 inhabitants of his domain, to whom he 

 granted certain privileges in considera- 

 tion of more or less clearly defined serv- 

 ices; forestiers, resiniers, and shepherds 



all owed certain duties to their feudal 

 lords in this case, Capitauxde Buchs. 

 The resiniers worked his forests for res- 

 inous products ; the forestiers guarded 

 his forests from waste and spoliation and 

 preserved the game; the shepherds fur- 

 nished wool and mutton in return for 

 free pasturage. All had a right to 

 gather dead branches in the forests and 

 to use dead trees for housing. As a re- 

 sult, every inhabitant as well as the lord 

 had a definable right in everj^ acre of 

 land and every tree in the forest. There 

 was no such thing as an absolute indi- 

 vidual proprietorship, but a triple one. 

 The lord has lost his feudal right, but 

 the French law has preserved, with sin- 

 gular discrimination, the right he held 

 and the obligation he owed to his feudal 

 servitors. These rights have, as a rule, 

 been absorbed by the nation or distrib- 

 uted between the new proprietors and 

 the communes, which are very properly 

 held to have succeeded to the privileges 

 he enjoyed and the obligations he owed. 



