FORESTRY IN FRANCE. 283 



coppice to high-forest is deemed advisable, it is always found difficult to reduce the annual 

 fellings to the quantity necessary in order to allow the growing stock to accumulate to the 

 required extent ; while the small size of the greater part of these forests renders them unsuited 

 to the treatment which they would have to undergo in order to effect their conversion. The 

 coppice system, including coppice under standards, is therefore in vogue in almost all com- 

 munal broad-leaved forests, such high-forest as the communes possess being found chiefly in 

 mountainous regions, and being composed of coniferous trees, which will not coppice. The 

 ■area of communal forest shown as under conversion consists principally of tracts in which the 

 coniferous trees are spontaneously taking possession of the ground and driving out the broad- 

 leaved species. It follows from what has been said, above that the state alone can, generally 

 speaking, raise broad-leaved high-forest on a large scale, or undertake the conversion of coppice 

 to high-forest. 



A further difference between the systems of culture generally adopted for the state and the 

 communal forests may be noted, viz., that whereas in the former less than one-fifth of the high- 

 forest is treated by the selection method, three-fourths of the communal forests are so treated. 

 In mountainous regions, where, as has just been said, the greater part of the communal high- 

 forest is found, the selection method possesses incontestable advantages, in consequence of the 

 continuous cover which it affords to the soil ; but although the respective merits of the two 

 methods, as applied to coniferous forests situated in such regions, are much disputed at present, 

 there has of late years been an undoubted tendency to return to selection, which has for some 

 time past fallen into discredit, and, taking the state and communal forests together, somewhat 

 more than one-half of the total area of their high-foreSt is now treated in this manner. 



Two variations of simple coppice are sometimes practiced : (l) That known in the Ardennes 

 as sariage, in which, after the wood has been cut and removed, the twigs and chips are burnt 

 on the ground, in order that their ashes may give to the soil sufficient manure to permit of the 

 growth of a crop of cereals during the year immediately following the cutting. This system, 

 which, as carried out in France, seems to be practiced rather for the sake of obtaining the crop 

 of com than as a method of forest culture, is gradually dying out. It is not adopted in the areas 

 under the state forest department. (2) That known as furetage, in which, instead of clean- 

 cutting the coppice, those shoots only are taken which have attained to certain fixed dimen- 

 sions, the operation being repeated annually, or after intervals varying from two to five years. 

 Furetage prevails chiefly in the valley of the Seine, in the forests from which the fuel supply of 

 Paris is drawn ; but it is also employed in the mountainous districts of the south, in the case of 

 forests maintained for the protection of steep slopes, which it is undesirable to denude entirely. 



It is impossible here to enter into anything like full details regarding these sylvicultural 

 questions. To study them completely, as they are taught and practiced in France, reference 

 must be made to the books on the subject, among which may be mentioned " The Manual of 

 Sylviculture," by G. Bagneris (translated into English by Messrs. Fernandez and Smythies), 

 Rider & Son, London; and "Z« traitetnent des bois en France;' by C. Broillard, Berger- 

 Levrault, Paris. 



WORKING PLANS. 



Working plans or schemes will, in course of time, be prepared for all forests administered 

 by the forest department. The law provides that all these forests shall be subjected to the 

 provisions of such plans, and that no fellings which are not provided for therein, and no 

 extraordinary cuttings, either from the communal "reserve," or in the blocks destined to grow 

 from coppice to high-forest, shall be made without the express sanction, in each case, of the 

 government, by whom all plans must be approved before they can be adopted. 



Subject to due provision being made for the exercise of rights of user, the working plan 

 provides for the management of the forest in the way that will best serve the interests of the 

 proprietor. Unlike an agricultural crop, which ripens and is gathered annually, trees take 

 many years to grow to a marketable size, the actual period that they require being dependent 

 not only on their species and the natural conditions under which they are grown, as climate, 



