INDUSTRIAL USES OF FOEEST FRUITS. 569 



6. Revenue from Pannage. 

 In the majority of cases where pannage is exercised, the 

 swine owners have prescriptive rights to the usage. The right 

 is usually so Avorded that a fixed number of swine are admissible 

 into certain parts of the forest, either to early or late mast, or 

 throughout the mast period. Wherever no prescriptive rights 

 exist, and the forest owner is willing to allow pannage, it is 

 usually leased or a bargain made with the swine owners. 



Section IV. — Industrial Uses of Forest Fruits. 



Besides the uses of forest fruits for artificial reproduction of 

 woods and for pannage, many kinds of fruit are also used in 

 other industries. The chief of these is oil-pressing, principally 

 from beech-nuts, but also from those of hazel and lime. 



Beech-nuts, when pressed for oil, should be thoroughly ripe, 

 and not have been too long on the ground. They are picked 

 up by hand from the ground, best in October, as soon as possible 

 after they have fallen. [In France,* the nuts are also swept-up 

 and sifted, the ground being cleared, before they fall, of under- 

 wood and dead leaves, which are replaced after the nuts have 

 been collected. — Tr.] The quantity of oil the nuts contain 

 varies in different years ; in dry years they yield more oil, but 

 there are also more bad nuts than in moist years. 



The beech-nuts are dried indoors on dry, well-ventilated 

 floors. Too quick drying, owing to the nuts being taken 

 indoors too soon, always injures the quality of the oil which 

 then becomes shghtly rancid ; when, however, the beech-nuts 

 have been properly air-dried, they may be completely dried by 

 means of a stove. The bad nuts are then removed, as they are 



* This usage was formerly extensively pursued in France, but was prohibited 

 V)y the Ordonuauce of 1669, on the ground that the nuts were required for 

 natural forest reproduction. This law was abolished in 1794, and the State Forests 

 opened free of charge for the collection of beech-nuts. The French forest code of 

 1827 again prohibited the practice, but allowed the French Forest Dejiartment to 

 authorise it, in certain cases, where the seed was not required for regeneration, 

 on payment of small sums. Thus in the forest of Ketz, near Soissons, 32,400 

 acres, 'the beech-nuts in 1869 sold for £600, being collected by 4, -3.04 people. 

 60,000 bushels were collected (100 bushels per acre of seedbearing wood) and the 

 oil pressed from the nuts was worth .CI 7, 600. Vide Ilev. dcs Faux ct Forets 

 1872, also do. 1893. 



