Waxxer.—State Forestry : its Aim and Object. 189 
be done, and conversant with what has been done and with what results, 
under similar circumstances, in other districts and provinces." 
The State Forester has also to think of climatic considerations and the 
permanent supply of timber, or what the French call bois de service, for the 
use of publie departments, considerations which do not necessarily enter 
into the calculations of private individuals—conserving natural forests or 
forming plantations. Mr. Brandis, the Inspector-General of Forests to the 
Government of India, on a recent occasion said— Forest administration in 
India has two main objects: 1st. The formation, protection, and gradual 
improvement of the public forest domains ; 2nd, Consistently with the 
steady improvement of the forests, to make as much timber, wood, and other 
forest produce available as possible for the requirements of the country and 
for export trade, and thereby to produce from these domains as large a 
surplus revenue as is compatible with the maintenance and increase of their 
productive powers." Perhaps no better general definition of the aim and 
object of State forest administration could be given. An argument often 
used against State forests and planting, and State Forest Departments, is 
that, if profitable, private individuals may be trusted to do it in their own 
interests. The fallacy of this argument has been repeatedly exposed by 
writers on forest subjects, and very clearly in a brochure entitled ** L'Amen- 
agement des Foréts," by A. Puton, Inspector of Forests and Professor of 
Forest Legislation at the Forest School at Nancy. He shows that whilst 
coppice woods, with a rotation of only 20 years, yield 2j cubic metres 
valued at 20 francs (16s. 8d.) per hectar (23 English acres) per annum, 
timber forests, with a rotation of 120 years, yield 53 cubic metres valued at 
81 francs (67s. 6d.) per hectar per annum ; but on the other hand, owing to 
the comparatively small amount of capital in soil and timber required under 
the former, as compared with the latter system, the return by the former is 
four and a-half per cent. against only two per cent. by the latter. Hence it 
is found that almost all private proprietors in France and elsewhere adopt the 
former system, and grow coppice woods, which give a quicker and larger 
money return, and were it not for the State and Communal forests managed 
under the latter system producing a greater volume of timber, and of large 
dimensions, the supply for naval purposes and publie works would fall far 
short of the demand, whilst climatic considerations would be entirely over- 
looked. Having thus explained as briefly as possible what forestry, and 
particularly State forestry, really means, I proceed to state how operations 
are initiated and carried out in Germany and France—the countries in 
which the science is furthest advanced—the general principles being ap- 
plicable to all countries and climates, for, as the Inspector-General of 
Forests in India writes in his preface to the Report on Forest Management 
