GENERAL IDEAS. 19 



do without, and which private proprietors are not in 

 a position to produce. This is indeed the chief 

 reason why forests should be in the possession of the 

 State. It is, moreover, to the advantage of the State 

 that this should be so, for the consequent expansion 

 of trade and the benefit to the public weal necessarily 

 contribute to swell the receipts of the treasury. In 

 the last place, from its being imperishable, the State 

 is formed of an unbroken series of successive 

 generations, each of which is an usufructuary of the 

 State domains, without any one of them having the 

 right to dispose of the capital which the latter 

 represent. Now, to place the State forests on such 

 a footing that they shall yield the scarcest and 

 most useful products is evidently to make them return 

 the highest revenue, leaving out of consideration 

 the ratio between the income and the capital 

 producing it. 



This last consideration equally concerns all other 

 imperishable proprietors, such as Communes, public 

 bodies, &c. ; but the general interests of the country 

 do not affect them to the same extent as the State. 

 This amounts to saying that it is their duty to 

 preserve intact all forests they may possess which 

 already yield the most useful products, but that they 

 are not obliged to bring them into this state if the 

 interests of the present generation would suffer too 

 much thereby. 



With respect to private, and therefore perishable, 

 proprietors, forests stand to them in the same position 

 as any other property ; they represent so much 

 capital invested, which they have at their complete 



