PROJECTED LEGISLATION ON FORESTRY. 213 
ties, and managed conjointly, the Committee have boldly 
ventured to lay down regulations respecting the manage- 
ment of woods on land gifted to a town. On the other 
hand, the Committee have not, in their proposal for a new 
Forest law, taken up the plan mooted by the Committee 
of 1879, that a greater or less portion of woods belonging 
to town communities should’ be left unchanged, in case 
different portions or arrangements of the forest thus 
attached render it unsuitable for the application of the 
contemplated laws of forest economy; and that such por- 
tions should be placed under communal management. This, 
according to the views of the Committee, 1s opposed to 
the otherwise valid principle that he has the testimony in 
his favour who has enclosed. The said proposal seems also 
unjust, in so far as it introduces a difference in the law 
with regard to the profiting from forests, in circumstances 
in. which the property has been acquired by the owner 
subject to the same conditions as others, and that merely 
on the ground that the (storskiftet) great enclosure may 
be made in the case of one town and not in the case of 
another. The proposed arrangement seems unfortunate 
for those who are required to administer the communal 
portion of the forest. For, according to all experience, the 
Committee remark, it is an unavoidable condition to a 
business association working progressively, that the part- 
ners should maintain uninterrupted respect and considera- 
tion for each other ; but this can hardly be expected when 
the association is brought compulsorily together, and 
without regard to the personal peculiarities of the partners, 
as would be the case through the limitation of the indi- 
vidual freedom of the partners, arising from the formerly 
mentioned conditions, that the association is indissoluble, 
and must follow in its management a plan dictated by the 
Forest Department. 
‘Tn order to avoid the hindrance which the present law 
lays in the way of the continuous existence of agree- 
ments about the common management of the forests of 
several proprietors, where such agreements can be brought 
