18 - INTRODUCTION. 



it requires sheltered localities. The plateaux and mountains of this 

 region present, instead of forests, more than 2,500,000 acres of 

 moors, pastures and ling bushes, and the value of the annual agricul- 

 tural produce is on an average only £2,880,000 per department. 



The ten departments included between the two seas in one direc- 

 tion and the Central Plateau and the Pyrenees in the other, forms a 

 zone which is not without some analogy with the region just de- 

 scribed. It is equally poor in forests. These, moreover, are confined 

 to a few isolated points, and abound in the sweet chestnut, which 

 delights in the silicious soils surrounding the mountains of Central 

 France. But below the zone of the sweet chestnut, the climate is 

 milder and suited to the cultivation of the vine. It is this shrub 

 which above every other thing makes the fortune of the region, for 

 this regiou produces nearly half the wine grown in France and unites 

 in itself all the great centres for the manufacture of brandy. The 

 two Departments of the Lot and of the Dordogne do not possess'a 

 single forest under the management of the State. The remainder 

 are still worse off, and the area they possess under wood is extremely 

 large compared to the value of the contained stock. They consume for 

 casks for holding their wines and spirits an enormous quantity of 

 wood. This they import from the level country of the Loire, the valley 

 of the Sa6ne, from the United States, from Italy, and, above all, from 

 Austria. They produce no portion of it themselves. The wood, 

 excluding fuel, yielded by the 2,000,000 acres of forests now remain- 

 ing, and belonging to private owners, consists chiefly of vine props 

 and hoops for casks. 



The Pyrenees, the Landes of Gascony, and Corsica present the 

 ordinary aspects common to wild pastoral and forest regions. In 

 spite of this, they do not possess any extensive area under the con- 

 trol of the Forest Department ; all that remains to them of such 

 forests does not aggregate even 1,250,000 acres or one-half the per- 

 centage obtaining in the North-East region. As regards the pri- 

 vate forests, the acreage of which is more than double that of the 

 state forests they may be almost left out of account. As a rule they 

 are not meant to furnish wood, but pasturage and resin. 



The six Pyrenean Departments were at one time well wooded. 

 The Valley of the Adour would have sufficed alone to supply the 

 ■Wants of the State Navy both in respect of oak and pine and 

 fir wood. But since the days of Henry IV. the forests of the 



