264 THE RESERVED POUETHS. 



years. But fluctuations are inevitable, and is it then possible for 

 any one to say whether the rate of profits would be three or four 

 or six per cent ? Of course not. The future is pregnant with un- 

 certainties, and here again those will reap an advantage who dis- 

 play the greatest skill and the farthest-reaching foresight. 



Too often it happens that a Commune, having debts to pay, 

 the interest on which is 5 per cent, finds that it possesses only 

 young timber in the Reserved Fourth of its forests. This young 

 timber, so people say, does not yield 5 per cent. Now, in the first 

 place, no one can prove the truth of this assumption, and, in the next 

 place, if, for argument's sake, we granted its truth, it would be neces- 

 sary to sell off the whole forest, since by hypothesis it is unable to 

 yield as much as 5 per cent. The question to consider is hence this, 

 " Is the forest in question worthless, and would the Commune better 

 its own position by selling it ?" When the Reserved Fourth does 

 not contain exploitable wood, it is to the ordinary fellings that the 

 Commune must look for the means wherewith to pay the interest 

 on its debt, and even to clear the debt itself once for all. There is 

 no other remedy. 



Analogous conditions to those met with in high forest cantons of 

 broad-leaved species are found in reserved blocks cropped with coni- 

 fers, and in old copses of 50 or 60 years and upwards of age, the re- 

 generation of which by seed requires, so to say, only its partial 

 exploitation at short intervals of time, as we shall see in the follow- 

 ing Book on Conversion^ Operations.^ 



In the organisation by area of high forests of conifers belong- 

 ing to Communes, the present practice is to set aside as a reserve 

 not the fourth part of the area of the forest, but the fourth part of 

 the timber to work out every year. This procedure, in entire con- 

 formity as it is with the spirit of the Forest Code and of t he Royal 

 Edict promulgating the former, is an excellent one, but on two 



1. Each species, in order that it may thrive, requires more or less expo- 

 sure to sunshine. Those that require it most are aspen, ash, the large maplas, 

 the elms, the wild cherry, none of which grow well except with their crowns 

 perfectly free on every side. Then come birch, alder, oak, lime, the common elm, 

 which do better in the open than in leaf-cauopy. Lastly, we have hornbeami 

 and beech, which attain a large aize in leaf-canopy, provided their crowns are 

 allowed to spread out a little. 



