PREFACE. 



This work is only the second edition of the Course of 

 Amenagement, published in 1860, by M. Nanquette. It is the 

 continuation of the Course of Lectures founded at the Forest School 

 thirty yeai-s ago, and delivered ever since with the modifications 

 which time and experience have made necessary in so young an art 

 as the Organisation of Forests. The main principles are what they 

 were in I860; only owing to facts established since then, certain points 

 have acquired more prominence, while others have had to- be aban- 

 doned altogether. Besides this, the study of a variety of forests 

 situated all over France, which, thanks to the kind initiative of 

 M. Fard, at that time Director General of Forests, the Professors of 

 the Forest School have been able to pursue year after year since- 

 1869, has enabled them to define in a precise manner the more 

 important ideas and to develope the Course by. the addition of new 

 ideas and illustrations. 



The publication of this work is intended to enable our students 

 to follow more easily the Course of Lectures on Forest Organisation- 

 by putting into their hands a succinct exposi of abstract principles- 

 and theoretical studies of a kind quite new to them. It is prece- 

 ded by an Introduction meant to impart a fair idea of the constitution 

 and distribution of the forests of France, and of the task our forest 

 officers are called upon to fulfil. 



The First Book presents, in a summary manner before the student, 

 the essential facts connected with the various Rigimes, and explains 

 the fundamental ideas on which the exploitation of forests is based, 

 and which are the laws themselves according to which forests are 

 to be worked. It was not an easy task to treat of the question of 

 choice of Regime after the masterly comparison of the various 

 Regimes made by Messrs. Lorentz and Parade In their " Course of 

 Forest Culture." But this subject necessarily stands at the very 

 threshold of our course, and there was thus no alternative but to 

 recall the principal points. This we have done in a simple manner, 

 in a form different to that adopted in the book in question, to which 



profit to themselves. 



