Bee. 1895.] RECENT AFFORESTATION WORK IN FRANCE. 



269 



RECENT AFFORESTATION WORK IN FRANCE. 



The administrafcion of the forests of France, which cover 

 17*8 per cent., or rather more than one-sixth of the total area of 

 the country, has always formed an integral part of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. Monsieur E. Tisserand, the present Director- 

 General of Agriculture and Gonseiller d'Etat, traces, from the 

 times of the Missi Diminici of Charlemagne, who were the 

 prototypes of the travelling inspectors of to-day, to the time 

 when he assumed charge of the Department, the progress of the 

 statistical reports which the Survey {Cadastre Parcellaire) of 

 1808-1847, has made so instructive, and shows how important 

 a part the charge of the forests plays in the agricultural history 

 of the country. 



At present, forest administration constitutes a sort of 

 imperium in imperio, the Directeur des Forets being permitted 

 a free hand in carrying out the work of his Department, but its 

 general policy being shaped, and its reports issued, under the 

 approval, and with the sanction, of the Minister of Agriculture. 



It must not, however, be argued from the above statement, that 

 the Government has the entire, or even the principal charge of the 

 forests of the country. As a matter of fact, the State actually 

 owns only one-tenth of these forests, and exercises supervision, 

 more or less strict, over less than one-third. In theory, indeed, 

 the French Government can, and in former da3^s did, interfere to 

 prevent private proprietors from so workjng their forests as to lay 

 bare the sources of streams, or the slopes of mountains, or to do 

 anything else likely to injure adjoining property ; but with a 

 more general and clearer perception of the value of forests to 

 agriculture, the necessity for this interference on the part of 

 the State has passed away, and the divisions of the forests of 

 France, at the present time, are as under : — 



65 per cent, the property of private proprietors, who work 

 them as they please. 



25 per cent, the property of the communes, or public bodies, 

 in part only subject to forest regime ; leaving a balance of 

 10 per cent, to represent forests, which form the exclusive 

 property of the State. 



This division means, in brief, that it is only in the Government 

 forests, and in a very small portion of those belonging to the 

 communes, that the two operations which constitute forestry, 

 viz., conservancy, or the rearing of trees to full maturity, and 

 reproduction, or the maintenance of a rotation of forest crops, 

 are systematically taken in hand. In the other forests the trees 

 are cut as required, or whenever they have reached their most 

 marketable stage in the particular district. And the effect of 

 this is, that while the supply of small wood for pit-props, vine- 



