FORESTRY IN FRANCE. 287 



party can make of their value as they stand. The purchaser, as a matter of course, cuts up 

 and exports the wood at his own cost, and in the form which best suits him, being bound 

 under severe penalties to carry out this work in the manner prescribed by the conditions of 

 sale. It has been urged that this system needlessly introduces a middle man between the 

 producer and the consumer, and that thus the profits of the former are reduced, while the 

 regeneration of the forest may be compromised by felling and exporting the trees in a careless 

 or ignorant manner ; but in reply to this it may be said that the wood merchant must always 

 exist, as it is but rarely that the actual consumer can himself go to the forest to get what he 

 wants, and that by strictly enforcing the conditions of sale, which are framed with special 

 regard to this object, interference with the regeneration of the forest is practically avoided. 



The second method differs from the first only in that the auction sale determines the r/ite 

 at which each of the various classes of produce is to be paid for; but it is open to the objec- 

 tion that the classification of the produce is difficult, and it thus leads to frequent disputes, in 

 the settlement of which the interests of the proprietor (state or commune) may be allowed to 

 suffer. This method is rarely adopted, except in the case of thinnings, when the quantity of 

 wood cannot well be accurately estimated beforehand. 



The sale of timber, cut and fashioned by departmental E^ency, is rarely resorted to. It 

 has certainly the advantage that the work is better done, and that more complete precautions 

 can be taken to secure the regeneration of the forest ; but on the other hand the state or the 

 commune, as the case may be, must advance all the money for the work, and the forest officers 

 become ch'arged with a large amount of supervision and accounts, while a number of pur- 

 chasers are admitted to the forest, and offenses of various kinds are from time to time com- 

 mitted by them. But the chief objection to the system is that the wood is not always cut up 

 in the manner which best suits the requirements of the market at the moment, a matter with 

 which the forest officer can never be so well acquainted as the professional timber merchant, 

 and thus not only do the general interests of the country suffer by failure to supply wood in 

 the form in which it is most required by the consumers, but the prices realized are not 

 always so good as those which the produce might have been made to fetch had it been cut 

 up in some other manner. 



Timber sold standing usually commands a higher rate than it does when disposed of in 

 any other manner, and for this and the other reasons that have been given the first of the three 

 systems is the one generally adopted in both the state and the communal forests. This 

 method of sale is not generally followed in other European countries ; but the French system 

 has stood the test of experience ; and it is greatly facilitated by the honesty which, as a gen- 

 eral rule, prevails in the trade to which it has given rise. 



In consequence of the absence or insufilciency of export roads in Corsica, and of the diffi- 

 culty experienced in getting purchasers who were willing to take the produce for a single year 

 only, a law was passed in 1840, which enacted that the timber to be cut in any part of that 

 island during a series of years, not exceeding twenty, might be sold at one time to a single 

 purchaser, the state, at the expiry of the term, becoming possessed of all works erected by 

 him without liability to the payment of compensation for them. A few of such contracts 

 exist to the present day; but both the system of roads and the timber trade having largely 

 developed during the last forty-five years the practice of entering upon such engagements is 

 gradually dying out. 



Minor produce. — Receipts on account of minor produce form an insignificant portion of 

 the gross revenue derived from the French forests, the most important item being that which 

 is due to the sale of hunting and shooting permits. Produce of this class is not sold so much 

 as a source of revenue, as to enable die ^ricultural population to make use of it, without giving 

 rise to the idea that they are entitled to it by right. It is sold by private contract, the price 

 being fixed by the conservator, or by the prefect, or the mayor, in the case of the state and 

 communal forests respectively. The conditions under which such sales are effected in the state 

 forests are determined by each conservator, with reference to local circumstances; and he 



