CHAPTER VI. 



Exploitation op the Pine Plantations op Gascony. 



In the exploitation of forests there are two methods of procedure which 

 have come down to us from times preceding these, in which the 

 practical application of science to the management of forests has led 

 to a more complicated, but more advantageous n^ethod, being adopted. 

 In the one, single trees are cut down here and there, as required, 

 leaving the others standing; in the other, extended areas are 

 successively brought under the axe, and completely cleared. To the 

 former method of procedure in France the designation Jardinage is 

 given. 



" Exploitation by Jardinage," says Boitel, " appears to me to be that 

 most used by the inhabitants of the Landes. In the tapping for 

 resin, and in the felling of trees, they give less attention to the tout 

 ensemble of the pinery than to the special <;ondition of the individual 

 tree ; on the same ground are seen very often numerous distinct 

 generations of trees : some young, and good for removal in thinning 

 the wood ; others full grown, and regularly tapped ; and others, in 

 pine, more aged, and disappearing in proportion as they become less 

 fit for yielding resin, and better adapted to yield workable timber or 

 fire-wood. In these pineries it is by the natural spreading of the 

 woods that the ground finds itself constantly clothed with trees, and 

 it is the same in the pineries of Corsica and Spain." 



But a more important feature of the pineries than the felling of 

 the trees, is the collecting and manufacture of the resinous sap 

 which they yield. 



Full details of the various operations connected with this are 

 given by M. Eloi Samanos, Alemhre de la Societe d'agriculture des 

 Landes, in his volume entitled " Traiti de la culture du Fin 

 Maritime." The following more succinct account of these is given 

 by M. Bagneris in his account of these plantations already cited. 



"It seems to be well-known," writes M. Bagneris, " that resinage is 

 not remunerative except where the maritime pine is indigenous, which 

 is only in mild and warm climates. This tree is found in abundance 

 on the ocean seaboard between the mouths of the Adour and the 

 Gironde. To the north of the latter, between Royan and Rochefort 



