218 GOVERNMENT REGULATION AND WORKING PLANS 



1. Local wood markets must be stabilized; and local needs, which can 

 only be supplied from certain forests, must be met. 



2. Limiberjacks, and other forest workmen who Uve in local villages, 

 must be supplied with work. 



3. An annual revenue is necessary for the communes since it takes the 

 place of income from taxes; it is not so necessary for the State owning 

 forests all over France, but is considered a convenience. 



Working plans are necessary because it is difficult to distinguish be- 

 tween the capital or growing stock, which is "property held in trust"" 

 and the annual income or growth which constitutes the owner's returns. 



The main trouble with forest crops is that they become merchantable 

 only after a long time. The yield is essentially periodic. There is a 

 final yield at the end of the rotation, and only if thinnings are profitable 

 or practicable is there in addition an intermediate yield. After a forest 

 is once estabhshed, this disadvantage of deferred yield is obviated by hav- 

 ing part of the crop mature every year and thus give a sustained annual 

 yield, which, if necessary, may be periodic instead of annual. 



The longer the rotation the larger the growing stock and usually with 

 long rotations the per cent earned by the capital invested is less than 

 with short rotations. For example, a coppice on a rotation of 20 years, 

 in theory at least, has less than one-fifth the growing stock when ripe of 

 a high forest with a 100-year rotation. In practice, since the high forest 

 soil yields more heavily, this disparity is even more marked. Due to the 

 small interest returns from long rotations private owners frequently 

 favor coppice with a short rotation, notwithstanding the consequent 

 damage to the soil. On the other hand, the French State poUcy has 

 been to grow the kind of wood most needed rather than that which 

 would be most profitable. 



The beginnings of forest regulation in France make interesting reading 

 because often we see conditions depicted which bear some resemblance 

 to the conditions during the past decade in the western United States. 

 The beginning of systematic cutting in the great Vosges^^ fir-spruce forests 

 is of particular interest: 



"At the commencement of our era the Sylva Vosagus belonged to the imperial 

 treasury. Later the great abbeys such as Remiremont, Senones, and Moyemnoutier 

 divided the ownership of this immense domain with the Lorraine dukes, who inherited 

 from the emperors. The Vosges fir stands thus belonged to a few very rich and power- 

 ful owners who began a systematic improvement (of the stands) at an early date, an 

 improvement not only of grazing and of wood usage but also of feUings for the supply 

 of the trade. The method adopted by the Vosges foresters for this objective was the 

 construction of sawmills. Set up on small streams which supplied the power . . . 



" d'Am^nagement. Puton, pp. 1-18. 

 » Huffel, Vol. Ill, pp. 108-110. 



