10 



M. JTTSSERAND, 



The AmlDassador of France. 



In France our forests'^ have, as every inhabitant of our country 

 knows, a code of laws. It was first used in 1S27, and it embodies the 

 regulations which were enacted by the famous ordinance of 1869. 

 That ordinance reaches far back into the centuries, for it recognizes 

 prescriptions Avhich had been enacted by Charles the Wise in the 

 fourteenth century. In order to keep our forests and to supervise 

 them, they have an army of their own; an army of rangers, forest- 

 ers, and keepers; an army of 6,000 men, who are subject to military 

 discipline, so that in time of war all this army is available to the 

 minister of war, but in ordinary times it is under the control of the 

 minister of agriculture for service in connection with the forests. 

 Since the early times several laws have been passed, all of them to 

 fortifv" and to improve practically the dispositions of the code of 

 1827. One of them is the law of I860, which pro^T.des that every 

 landowner who possesses mountain slopes is obliged, whether he wills 

 or not, to reforest them if denuded. In 1882 a new law, perhaps a 

 little less stringent, but more practical, was enacted. According to 

 this law, which is still in force, the Government has the right to 

 serve an injunction on any owner of mountains who has not refor- 

 ested them. The owner has the right to refuse, and in that case 

 the Government expends a fair sum of money and plants the trees 

 for the good of the community. The results have been very happy. 

 In every part where these rules have been applied it is noted that the 

 timber trade has been regulated, that the water supplies from springs 

 have been more regular. The replanting in the south of France has 

 evidenced once more what Mr. Roosevelt so well said, that the plant- 

 ing of trees abates the force of the wind. And there in the south of 

 France, where terrible winds are the cause of so much havoc, the 

 reforestation has been the means of their' abatement to a considerable 

 extent. * * * In the same manner another great mischief was 

 being done along the coast of the ocean. For years and for centuries 

 the sand encroached upon the land. Part of it was becoming a 

 desert, and as the years went on the sand invaded the country more 

 and more ; it was like a death powder covering our country. Exactly 

 a century ago we thought a stop should be put to it, and we thought 

 of that great friend of man, the forest, and the forest did not fail us. 

 Trees now cover all that sand country, and it has become one of the 

 most usefid in France. And now villages and towns have grown 



o The French forests cover an area of 23,517,485 acres, or nearly 18 per cent, 

 of the total land surface. The net annual yield is approximately $2.50 per acre, 

 or, in all, about $58,793,712. 



