origin of this custom dates back to the period 
of devastation in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries. It was one of the provisions of the 
Forest Ordinance of 1669. That it has been on 
the whole a wise provision for France is well 
attested by the use to which certain of this 
reserved timber was put during the war. With- 
out this surplus it would have been difficult, if 
not impossible, to meet the demands of the 
French and the allied armies for the wood abso- 
lutely essential along the battle front. _ 
In practice the reserve may be effected in 
either of two ways: First, by the segregation 
of a definite portion of the forest and its man- 
agement apart from the general working plan 
for the forest; or second, by reducing by one- 
fourth the allowed annual, or periodic cut. In 
normal times the reserves also perform the use- 
ful function of stabilizing local markets and 
giving steady employment to resident laborers, 
for should it prove necessary for any reason to 
stop operations in the regular working groups, 
the workmen can be transferred to the reserved 
portion of the forest. : 
by the experience of France. The lesson of the 
value of community forests is one that we as a 
nation have yet to learn. 
Some of the communes own and operate their 
own sawmills, Dut more often the mills belong 
to some individual. They are small affairs, 
often run by water wheels. The saw plays up 
and down vertically with a short stroke. They 
cannot be called speedy. After the sawyer has 
adjusted the log on the carriage, he sits down 
for lunch, or goes about other work. By the 
time he is through the saw has about reached 
the other end of the log. In one little mill in 
the Vosges mountains the rate of motion was 
approximately one foot in 30 seconds. The 
capacity of that mill was about one good sized 
tree per day, though the silver firs in the Vos- 
ges are good trees. These mills meet the local 
needs and in regions where hand labor is still 
the normal condition, help to keep the local 
population employed. It is not fair to judge 
them by American standards, nor is it our affair 
if the French prefer to do things that way. 
They claim that these little mills do very accu- 
(N THE 
FOREST OF 
ECOUVES, 
ALENCON, 
TYPICAL OF 
CONVERSION 
FROM COPPICE 
UNDER 
STANDARDS 
TO HIGH 
FOREST 
COMMUNAL 
FORESTS 
The importance to France of the communal 
forests can perhaps best be brought out here by 
quoting another paragraph from the chapter by 
Col. Greeley in Major Woolsey’s book, already 
cited: 
“These community forests are important 
sources of revenue for hundreds of French vil- 
lages, reducing taxes and affording the means 
for constructing town halls, roads and other 
local improvements. The situation in France 
would be paralleled if every village in New Eng- 
land owned 500 or 1,000 acres of forest, kept 
continuously in the highest state of production, 
furnishing the timber locally needed, affording 
a substantial income for community purposes 
and providing steady employment for a number 
of its citizens.” American foresters are not the 
only citizens of the United States who can profit 
rate work and turn out planks of exact and uni- 
form thickness. They have not yet recovered 
from their consternation at the way the Ameri- 
can and Canadian forestry regiments jammed 
through the logs at their mills, when the one 
idea was to get lumber to the front with the 
absolute minimum of delay. 
REGULATION OF THE 
PRIVATE FOREST QWNER 
In the regulation of the private owner the 
French law is: exceedingly strict. Indeed the 
Forest Ordinance of 1827, with its amendment 
in 1859, forms a special code separate from 
other French law and imposes on the forest 
owner restrictions that do not hold for any 
other class of property. The core of the law is, 
the private forest owner is held responsible for 
keeping his land productive as a forest. Once 
more to quote Col. Greeley: “The significance 
of this infringement of the rights of private 
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