Dec. 1895.] RECENT AFFORESTATION WORK IN FRANCE. 275 



of better quality. And this superiority is still more marked 

 when we come to examine their composition. 



By far the greater proportion of the State forests is made up 

 of well-grown trees, or trees being carefull}/ tended to maturity, 

 simple coppice occupying only 2*5 per cent, of the whole area. 

 In the communal forests, the exact opposite is the case. Coppice 

 woods, treated in view of their eventual conversion into timber 

 forests, occupy only 1 per cent, of their surface. This difference 

 of composition is more clearly brought out in a series of maps 

 attached to the Statistical Report on the forests for the year 

 1892, and published in 1894. The communes and public esta- 

 blishments aim at realising the whole of their available forest 

 revenues ; their financial position and their daily requirements 

 make this a necessity. They cannot afford, or they cannot 

 arrange, to forego the interest on outlay, which, like the creation 

 or conversion of a forest, must necessarily be for some years 

 unremunerative. And the consequence is that their only reserves 

 of forests, which consist principally of pines, are on the mountain 

 slopes of the Jura, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, in comparatively 

 inaccessible situations. They possess scarcely any oak forests, 

 this wood being used almost entirely in the earlier stages of 

 its growth. Indeed, the insufficiency of the production of oak 

 throughout France has been the not uncalled-for subject of a 

 little pamphlet written by one of the inspectors of forests, who 

 urges upon the Government, the communes, and the private pro- 

 prietors, the great desirability of tending, their oaks to maturity^ 

 in view of the future. 



Nothing more forcibly strikes the inquirer into either the 

 agricultural or forestal position in France, than the number of 

 small proprietors. The greater proportion of the actual culti- 

 vators of the soil, to be strictly accurate 61*01 per cent., are 

 proprietors, cultivating exclusively their lands, w4th the aid of 

 their family, their household, and outdoor servants. Most of 

 these have in addition their own forests, or rather coppice woods, 

 and those who have not such woods already attached to their 

 properties, are, under the exigency of the times, creating them. 

 It is not surprising therefore to find that nearly two -thirds, or 

 as has been said above, 65 per cent, of the forests of France are 

 in the hands of private proprietors. 



It is a noteworthy fact that while the prices of all agricultural 

 crops have fallen in France within the last 20 years, although in 

 a degree considerably less than in our own country, the price 

 of firewood (oak) has not only maintained, but has even increased^ 

 its standard value, in these years.* Here, then, is a stable com- 

 modity, which is in France, moreover, a necessity of existence to 

 help the struggling proprietor. And there are other uses outside 

 his own household, and agricultural needs, to which the trees 



* The average price ia 1874 was 10 francs 58 cents, per sthve, and in 1893, it was 

 10 francs 63 cents, per stere. 



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