3 6o FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION August 



3. In this distribution of rights and tions erected and cultivated by the oc- 

 privileges the commune is held to have cupant. 



succeeded to most of the public rights The result of these curiously compli- 



and obligations of the feudal lord. The cated conditions is that every person 



commune in which land once held by living on an ancient feudatory has an 



feudal right is situated, must prevent it individual, inheritable, and inalienable 



from being enclosed, so as to destroy or interest in every tree and shrub and 



unduly restrict the rights of pasturage every grain of sand in the common for- 



or forestry, which have descended to est. There is no such thing as an ab- 



the inhabitants. solutely exclusive ownership in any of 



4. The private rights or privileges of the lands not distinctly aliened by the 

 the feudal lord are held to have de- ancient feudatory. Such ownership 

 scended to the present occupants in all can only be secured or exercised by 

 cases where it can be shown that they special and concurrent grant of all the 

 have acquired the same by purchase or parties in interest the state, the corn- 

 inheritance. In the greater part of this mune, and the occupant. By obtain- 

 region, however, the right of actual oc- ing these the purchaser may obtain the 

 cupancy of the feudal lord was so vague right to enclose, to cultivate, or to work 

 and uncertain that it was impossible to and cut to the exclusion of all others, 

 define by metes and bounds the limits of but if his timber is killed by fire the 

 alienation by inheritance or purchase, rights of the forestiers to cut and use 

 Because of this, the general forest right is held to attach, and can only be re- 

 that is, the right of hunting, cutting, leased by individual renunciation, 

 enclosing, and working for resinous pro- 



ducts-are held to have escheated to the WHERE MARITIME PINE FLOURISHES. 

 state, and not to the heirs or purchasers, The maritime pine is now planted in 

 while the rights of communal enjoy- large quantities as a matter of profit by 

 ment remain to the inhabitants or ten- the owners of sandy lands which are 

 antry, modified only by conditions im- properly located. As its name implies, 

 posed by law. Every resident of the it prefers an exposure to sea air and 

 forest enjoys all the rights which at- does not object to a subsoil having a 

 tached to his ancestor or the person brackish impregnation. It does not 

 whose right he has obtained by pur- succeed where it meets a temperature 

 chase except as they may be modified below zero for any considerable time, 

 by. the action of the commune. nor in a continuously dry climate. A 

 The result is that there are hundreds location subject to severe drouths, with 

 of square leagues on which the pines a dry subsoil in a climate like that of 

 can not be worked for turpentine nor the northern part of the United States, 

 cut for timber. Over these free passage is not likely to prove suitable for the 

 is allowed, and every habitant has a growth of this tree, 

 right to gather dead wood and utilize There are now nearly 700,000 acres 

 the common pasture. When one pur- of maritime pine growing in France, 

 chases or leases unoccupied land which one-third of which is under control of 

 has no timber on it the right of the the government and two-thirds in pri- 

 habitant still subsists, and the trees, the vate ownership. The trees are usually 

 proprietor plants, are subject to the grown in nursery rows, carefully pro- 

 same conditions as previously attached tected by mulching or some sort of low 

 to the land purchased. He may extin- growing shrubs or grain for two or three 

 guish the right of pasturage by negoti- years, and then set out in the planta- 

 ating with the commune and acquire tions. Those who have recently pur- 

 from the government the right to work chased seeds of this variety of pine for 

 and cut the trees he cultivates, but the cultivation in the United States would 

 rights of the forestiers are held to be do well to consider the essential charac- 

 practically inextinguishable. They teristic of its habitat ; also the fact that 

 still have the right to gather dead wood in removal from the nursery the roots 

 and fallen timber even on the planta- must not be exposed so as to become 



