300 



FORESTRY IN FRANCE. 



This body of officials is employed, partly in the ordinary duties of the department, as being 

 in administrative, executive, or protective charge of the units into which the forests (including 

 those of Algeria) are grouped, for their more efficient and convenient control; partly in special 

 branches, such as those which are charged with the preparation of working plans, with the 

 treatment of unstable mountains, and with the communal grazing arrangements ; and partly also 

 in the central offices at Paris. The following statement shows the number of officers of the 

 superior staff employed on each kind of duty : 



TAe central offices at Paris. — Since 1877 '^* forest department has been under the minister 

 of s^iculture, instead of, as formerly, under the minister of finance. And the change has 

 proved a most beneficial one ; for the forests are now regarded more from the point of view of 

 their utility in augmenting the general prosperity of the country, than from that of the money 

 revenue they can be made to yield; and they are no longer looked upon as available for sale 

 whenever the low state of the exchequer may seem to suggest this course, which was not seldom 

 in olden days. The minister of agriculture is the president, and the director of the forest 

 department is the vice-president, of a council of administration formed by the eight inspectors- 

 general, which considers all questions submitted for the orders of government. The central 

 office is divided into seven sections, each of which deals with certain branches of the work, 

 and is presided over by an inspector-in-charge, who is assisted by two or three other forest 

 officers and a number of clerks. 



Ordinary dtities in the forests. — ^The unit of administrative charge is the division {inspec- 

 tion) which is held by an inspector ; but for purposes of executive management this charge is 

 split up into subdivisions {cantonments), under assistant or sub-assistant inspectors, who are 

 also at the disposal of the inspector for any special work that he may require of them. Occa- 

 sionally, when the division is a small one, the inspector himself holds charge of a subdivision. 

 The divisions are grouped into conservatorships, and these again into six circles (rlgions), each 

 of the latter being assigned to an inspector-general. The forests, state and communal, managed 

 by the forest department are 11,508 square miles in extent, and they are divided into 414 sub- 

 divisions, 192 divisions, and 35 conservatorships; consequently, the average area of each of 

 these charges is as follows, viz.: Subdivision, 28 square miles; division, 60 square miles; con- 

 servatorship, 329 square miles. The average area of an inspector-general's circle extends over 

 1,918 square miles. 



The subdivisional officer is essentially an out-of-doors man, who personally directs all work 

 going on within the limits of his charge, in accordance with the instructions given to him by 

 the inspector, whose assistant he is, and who can at his discretion employ him on special duties 



* Exclusive of two forest officers who have been removed from the active list as professors, and three 

 professors who are not forest officers. 



