4 CONCLUSIONS AND SUMMARY 



The administration is essentially simple, economical, and prac- 

 tical; the budget is based upon the revenue rather than upon 

 an ideal. 



ALGERIA 



Much the same climatic and topographic conditions found in 

 Tunisia are characteristic of Algeria. Perhaps the most re- 

 markable features of the forest administration are: The un- 

 fortunate sales of federal cork-oak forests by Napoleon; the 

 difficulty of preventing trespass and theft; fire protection (al- 

 though it cannot be said to be uniformly successful) ; foresta- 

 tion; and the Algerian Code. 



Unquestionably, the progress made in Algerian forestry from 

 1900 on is due to the forest commission that made a careful 

 study of conditions and suggested very radical improvements 

 both in methods of administration and in laws. The results of 

 this study are found in the Algerian Code of 1903, which has 

 been translated (Appendix, p. 161). It is very significant 

 that this commission felt the preservation of existing forests 

 and brush cover of vital importance to the health, prosperity, 

 and habitabihty of Algeria. The difficulties met with in the 

 early administration are undoubtedly characteristic of all early 

 forest administration: the inclusion of needless agricultural land 

 within forest boundaries; failure to properly consider and edu- 

 cate local sentiment favorable to conservative forest control; 

 a literal rather than practical enforcement of early laws, which 

 in many cases are often ill-adapted to administrative enforce- 

 ment. Administrative organization must always depend on 

 practicability rather than on theory. This is well illustrated 

 in Algeria by the departure from this standard organization 

 common in France. In France the conservator is in charge of 

 a conservation which is split up into forests under inspectors or 

 assistant inspectors. In Algeria this organization would have 

 been too expensive and it would not have provided suitable 

 positions for men of relatively low rank who were sufficiently 

 advanced, however, to care for the simple administrative needs 

 found in extensive forest management. Accordingly, the present 



