Property Conditions. 189 
domain which comprises roads, canals, harbors, etc., and 
the alienable national domain including the forest and 
other property derived from royal or crown domains 
which were entirely absorbed in it. To this national 
domain was added by the law of 1792 the forest property 
of the refugees of the revolution and finally when by the 
treaty of Basel (1795) the French frontier had been 
pushed to the Rhine, the total state forest comprised 
around 6,500,000 acres, nearly one-third of the total for- 
est area. 
But through sales and otherwise this area had by 1815 
been reduced to 3,200,000 acres, and during the period 
until 1872 no stable policy regarding this property was 
maintained, the area being reduced to less than 2,500,- 
000 acres. At present (1905) it comprises 2.9 million 
acres or less than 12 per cent. of the total forest area, 
55 per cent. of which comes from the original royal 
domain, 22 per cent. from original church property and 
23 per cent. from recent acquisitions, secured under the 
laws of reboisement of mountains, sand dunes, etc. 
The communal property developed largely in a simi- 
lar manner as in Germany from the Mark and through 
the feudal system, with its rights of user as a result. 
In the twelfth century the grandees or seigneurs were 
active in colonizing their domains, acquired as fiefs or 
otherwise, with serfs and others, giving them charters 
for villages with communal privileges and rights. 
Under this method another kind of communal forest 
property grew up, in which limitations and reservations 
of rights imposed by the seigneurs gave rise to many 
rights of user. These, as in Germany, were later fre- 
quently exchanged for territory, thereby increasing the 
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