Vi PREFACE 



learned will flow less from examples to be followed than from 

 mistakes to be shunned. 



Here lies the special value of French forest management as 

 against German. The reason why more valuable instruction 

 and more useful example for the American forester is to be 

 found in France than in Germany is because French methods 

 are less rigid, more adaptable, less controlled by arbitrary rule 

 than is the case in Germany. French forest management is the 

 natural expression of the quick and practical intelligence of 

 the French, and this is especially true in its application to the 

 French colonies, where many of the conditions approximate 

 those with which American foresters find themselves obliged 

 to deal. 



As a former student of the French Forest School at Nancy, 

 it is a matter of special satisfaction to me that Theodore S. 

 Woolsey, Jr., my friend and fellow member of the United States 

 Forest Service, has undertaken to give Americans an account 

 of forest management by France. 



Mr. Woolsey 's equipment for his task is unusually complete. 

 His knowledge of the theory and practice of forestry in the 

 United States is such as could result only from thorough train- 

 ing followed by wide experience in the field. Through his 

 work in the Forest Service he has seen the worst and the best 

 of American methods of forestry, and how these work out under 

 the stress of practical, silvicultural, financial, and administra- 

 tive conditions. 



His experience abroad includes not only Continental Europe 

 and the French Dependencies, which latter are described in 

 this book, but also forest management in British India as well. 

 What has everywhere drawn and held his interest is the analogy 

 or the contrast with forest work at home. The present book 

 owes no small part of its value to that fact. Thus in Tunisia, 

 Mr. Woolsey tells us, one of the recognized methods of pro- 

 tection against forest fires is to promote the settlement and 

 occupation of agricultural lands within forest boundaries. So 

 the U. S. Forest Service has done its utmost to encourage a 

 resident population on cultivable lands within the National 



