EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE PUBLIC FORESTS 11 



Their Technical Management. — The forest code estabHshes the 

 principle that all of these public forests must be handled under a precise 

 scheme of management, the main point of which is to fix the amount of 

 wood which may be cut yearly without reducing the growing stock, or 

 capital, and to prescribe the methods of cutting so as to maintain the 

 productivity of the forests. The importance attached by the French to 

 their public forests is illustrated by the fact that the management plan 

 for each unit must not only be approved by the high council of the Forest 

 Service and by the Minister of Agriculture but must be authorized by a 

 decree of the President of the Repubhc. The function of State and com- 

 munal forests is settled to be the supplying of national industries with 

 the classes of products which they most need, particularly large timber 

 which may not be grown on private lands because it is less profitable. 

 The purpose of State and other public forests is thus to supplement the 

 materials produced iji the largest quantities by other owners with choice 

 timber whose growing is long and costly, a distinction which often dis- 

 appears, however, under the scale of values fixed by supply and demand. 



The Communal Forests of France. — The communal forests of France 

 are one of the most interesting and suggestive phases of her public 

 forestry. The French Commune may be compared with the New Eng- 

 land township — a self-governing, rural community of exact geographical 

 limits. In the break-up of the old order these httle communities, which 

 usually had held entailed rights to the use of wood and forage from royal 

 or seigneurial estates, asserted their claims so vigorously as to acquire 

 many small tracts of forest and pasture land in fee simple. Their forest 

 holdings were increased in various ways, as through the planting of 

 185,000 acres in the southwestern sand plains under State supervision. 

 To-day they form a sixth of the forests of France. Under the terms of 

 the forest code, the great bulk of them are administered as part and parcel 

 of the public forests. While still serving their original purpose of fur- 

 nishing supplies of wood, especially fuel, for local use, they thus are im- 

 portant contributors to the national lumber pile. 



Some communes own and operate their own small sawmills. These 

 community forests are important sources of revenue for hundreds of 

 French villages, reducing taxes and affording the means for constructing 

 town halls, roads, and other local improvements. The situation in 

 France would be paralleled if every village in New England or the Lake 

 States owned 500 or 1,000 acres of forest, kept continuously in the highest 

 state of production, furnishing the timber locally needed, affording a sub- 

 stantial income for community purposes, and providing steady employ- 

 ment for a number of its citizens. 



Educational Value of the Public Forests. — The real value of the pubHc 

 forests of France, as of her whole forestry system expressed in the "regime 



