14 IMPRESSIONS OF FRENCH FORESTRY 



forests, which for the most part are fairly well cared for and kept in con- 

 tinuous production, are a striking object lesson to Americans who are 

 wont to regard forestry as possible only for the Nation or State. About 30 

 per cent of them are devoted to the production of hardwood fuel. Other- 

 wise their technical management, while less regular and uniform and usu- 

 ally less conservative, does not differ in essential respects from that of the 

 pubhc forests. Upon her privately owned forests France depends for the 

 bulk of her lumber and fuel wood. 



Returns from Private Forests. — While aesthetic and social considera- 

 tions and the play of national conservatism have their part in this result, 

 forestry is a real business in France. Large areas of woodland are held as 

 long-term investments and often are highly regarded as stable securities 

 for the investment of family or institutional funds. Well-managed oak 

 and beech forests yield net revenues of from 2^ to 4 per cent. Such 

 forests may furnish a crop of coppice every 20 or 25 years and at the same 

 time usually carry an over story of high-grade timber, which may require 

 200 or 240 years to mature but is actually harvested in small quantities 

 at every periodic cutting. A large forest property is split into lots or 

 compartments containing sprouts or timber of different ages. Some 

 material is harvested every year or at least every 4 or 5 years. There is 

 thus an actual current revenue in keeping with the size of the whole 

 property; and the problem of accrued carrying charges, which is so bur- 

 densome to the owner of undeveloped timber in the United States, 

 scarcely exists in France. 



Forestry as a commercial business is most highly developed in the 

 pineries of the Landes where the low value of the land and the combined 

 yields of naval stores and timber make it exceptionally profitable. Net 

 returns of 6 per cent on investments in southern pineries are not un- 

 common. Here also the revenue is practically continuous. The larger 

 properties contain blocks of timber of varying ages, and aside from a 

 steady return from turpentine orcharding, realize every few years upon a 

 small cut of stumpage. 



Forest and Sawmill Divorced. — The great bulk of the French forests 

 is in separate hands from the timber-using industries. This has an im- 

 portant bearing upon their management. The forest is relatively inde- 

 pendent of the sawmill. The forest owner determines the amount and 

 location of the stumpage which he wishes to cut from year to year. 

 Foresters or forest rangers are employed on all of the larger properties, 

 and the cutting area is selected, marked, and estimated by them. The 

 sawmills are uniformly small and most of them are portable. In the 

 eastern mountains there are many little stationary mills, driven by steam 

 or water power, which obtain their logs from the yearly cuttings on any 

 one of a dozen or more forest properties in their vicinity. Logs are 



