FRENCH FOREST ORDINANCE OF 1669; 



WITH HISTOBICAL SKETCH OF 

 PREVIOUS TREATMENT OF FORESTS IN FRANCE, 



PART I. 



TREATMENT OF FORESTS IN FRANCE, PREVIOUS TO THE 

 ISSUE OF THE FOREST ORDINANCE OF 1669. 



CHAPTER I. 



EARLY HISTORY OF FORESTS, FOREST TREATMENT, AND 

 FOREST LEGISLATION IN FRANCE. 



In M. Cezanne's Suite to the Etude sur les Torrents dea 

 Alps I find an historical sketch of the Deboisement of 

 France, or destructions of woods and forests, which have 

 rendered necessary the Eeboisement of the mountains as 

 a means of arresting and preventing the disastrous con- 

 sequences and effects of torrents, in which he thus speaks 

 of the Forests of France in prehistoric times : — 



' At the beginning of the stone period of history, when 

 the first human families commenced settling along the 

 shores of France, what proportion of the whole superficies 

 of France was that which was occupied by forests ? What 

 was this proportion of the superfcies occupied by forests 



B 



