GHAPTEE Y. 



THE RESERVED FOURTHS. 



SECTION I. 

 Legal Bearings of the Subject. 



A fourth of the area of communal woods has to be entirely set 

 aside from the remaining portion of those forests, this latter alone 

 being subjected to the ordinary exploitations. Section 93 of the 

 Forest Code puts this subject as follows : — 



One-fourth of the fm'ests belonging to Communes and Public 

 Foundations shall always he set aside as a reserve, whenever these 

 Communes or Public Foundations possess at least 25 acres of tcooded 

 land, whether in one piece or in stveral plots. 



This rule does not apply to forests cropped entirely with a coni- 

 ferous species. 



The aggregate area of the Reserved Fourths established in 

 accordance with the Section just quoted is actually 677,500 acres. 

 They thus represent a considerable and a very important portion of 

 the forest .property of our Communes. 



The reservation of one-fourth of the area of Communal woods 

 may be traced back to a date much earlier than that of the Forest 

 Code of 1827. The rule which that Code enforces is simply repro- 

 duced from Section 2, Chapter 25, of the Royal Edict of 1669. That 

 Section runs thus : — A fourth of common wooded land situated mi 

 the best soils and in the most convenient localities shall be reserved to 

 grow up into high forest. The Reserved Fourths of communal 

 woods have thus been in existence for a very long time, and very 

 often, indeed, they comprise the|best portions of those forests. But 

 the intention of the Forest Code is not to let them grow up as high 

 forest, as was that of the Royal Edict of 1669, but simply to econo- 



