THE FOREST POLICY OF FRANCE. 



BY 

 Mr. J. J. JUSSERAND 



Ambassador from France 



I AM very happy to be enabled, by the flattering 

 invitation of the Hon. Secretary of Agriculture, 

 to add French congratulations to the American con- 

 gratulations and American advice which this Congress 

 has just received from the most popular and most 

 eloquent voice in the United States. 



The subject of your studies is one indeed which 

 appeals most powerfully to man's mind, not to say 

 man's heart. The forest is the great friend which 

 supplied the early wants of mankind, giving the first 

 fuel, helping to the rearing of the first real house. 

 And now, after the lapse of thousands of years, the 

 forest continues the great friend, so adaptable it is to 

 our wants. The more we invent, the greater become 

 our new needs, and the more necessary is the forest 

 for us. Railroads are called in French "chemins de 

 jer^' but for all the iron in them, where would we be 

 without the forest ? It supplies the dozen million cubic 

 meters of wood spent every year in the world for 

 railways. 



The forest has one singular and providential advan- 

 tage over most of the earth-produced elements of our 

 industries. When we have exhausted an iron mine, 

 a gold mine, an oil well, a supply of natural gas ; when 

 the oil has been carried in immense pipes from Chicago 

 to New York and from thence to our private lamps, it 

 is finished; we can consume the thing; we cannot 

 make it. Not so with the forests. It is in our hands 



