No complete monographic history of forestry in France is in
existence, and mainly incomplete notes scattered through various
volumes were at the disposal of the writer.
The work which contains the largest amount of historic information
is G. HUFFEL, _Economie Forestière_, 3 volumes, 1904-1907, pp. 422,
484, 510, perhaps the most ambitious work in the French language,
which has been largely followed in the account here given. It is a
collection of ten studies, historical data being interspersed
throughout the three volumes, the third volume containing one study
entirely historical.
L. F. A. MAURY, _Les forêts de la Gaule et de l’ancienne France_,
1867, 501 pp. is mainly descriptive, but full of interesting
historic data and detail up to the revolutionary period.
JULES CLAVÉ, _Etudes sur l’économie forestière_, 1862, 377 pp.,
12^o, while mainly a propagandist essay, rehearses to some extent
the history of forest practice, policies, etc., and gives a good
insight into conditions at that time.
_Die forstlichen Verhältnisse Frankreichs_, by Dr. A. V.
SECKENDORFF, 1879, pp. 228, furnishes a few historical notes.
Three English publications by JOHN CROUMBIE BROWN, _Pine Plantations
in France_, _Reboisement in France_, 1876; _French Forest Ordinance
of 1669_, 1882, are profuse and not entirely accurate, but give
hints of historic development.
CH. GUYOT, _L’enseignement forestier en France_, 1898, 398 pp.,
gives an insight into the development of forestry education and a
complete history of the school at Nancy, and throws much light on
other developments.
_Code de la législation forestière_, _par_ PUTON, contains all the
legislation having reference to forests.
An article on _L’idée forestière dans l’histoire_, by L. F. TESSIER,
in Revue des eaux et forêts, 1905, Jan., Feb., gives on 26 pages an
interesting brief survey of the history of forest policy in France.
_Forestry in France_, by F. BAILEY, in the _Indian Forester_, 1886,
61 pp., describes well conditions at that time.
France is one of the countries in which forestry has been practised for
a long time and forestry practice has been almost as highly developed as
in the preceding Teutonic countries.
Germany’s neighbor to the West has evolved, however, forest policies and
practices which are different in some respects from those of Germany,
although the early history of forestry in France was largely analogous
to that of Germany. Indeed, until the end of the ninth century, the two
countries being undivided, the same usages existed more or less in both,
except that in the Gallic country Roman influence left a stronger
imprint, Gallia having been long under the dominion of Rome.
The fact that France has for nearly a thousand years been a unit, while
Germany has until recently been split up into many independent
principalities, did much for uniform, albeit less ambitious, development
in forestry matters.
Most of the forest policy as it exists to-day was inaugurated during the
monarchical regime, which came to an end in 1871. Since that year, a
republican form of government, with an assembly of 584, a senate of 300
members, under a President elected by the legislature for seven years,
has been in existence.
The country is principally a plain, mostly below 1200 feet in altitude,
sloping to the north and west; the mountain ranges (Pyrenées, Alps,
Jura, Vosges) are confined mainly to the south and east boundaries, with
secondary ranges (Cevennes, Côte d’Or, Auvergne, etc.,) in the southeast
part of the country.
Of the 204,000 square miles of territory, just about 18 per cent. is
wooded, which, with a population of nearly 40 million, leaves only about
.6 of an acre per capita.
In its present condition this area does not produce more than one-third
of the home demand, which requires on the average an import in excess
over export to the amount of about 25 million dollars ($33 million in
1902), representing over 110 million cubic feet annually, mostly
workwood, while the export is of mine props and railroad ties at about
half the value of the imported wood.
Since, in 1892, there were still nearly 12% (over 15 million acres)
waste land, opportunity for enlargement of the forest area seems to
exist. It appears that about two-thirds of this waste land is capable of
bearing forest, and the existing forest area is capable of much larger
production than the present; three quarters of the production being fuel
wood.
The distribution of forest area is very uneven, varying from 3.5 to 56
per cent. in the various departments. Only about 20% of the area is
located on the mountains, 19% in hill country, and 60% in the plains.
Six forest regions may be differentiated according to Huffel, which,
however, are mainly geographical divisions: the northeast; valleys of
Seine and Loire; northwest and central; southwest and Pyrenees;
Mediterranean and Pre-alps; Alps.
Hardwoods, oak (40%), beech and ash, etc., occupy fully 80%, while
pine--the two species _silvestris_ and _maritima_, largely
planted--represents the bulk of the 20% of coniferous forest area, fir,
spruce and larch in the mountains forming a very small part.
Only 25% of the forest area is timber forest, 38% is coppice, and 35%
coppice with standards, 2% being in process of conversion into timber
forest. In the State forests alone, however, 68% are timber forest or in
process of conversion to that form.
Of the 227 million acres, hardly more than one-third, belonging to
state and communities, are placed under the _régime forestier_, i.e.,
supervised and managed under working plans. The larger area is under
coppice.
Three-fourths of the communal and one-sixth of the state’s timber forest
is managed under selection system. Combinations of farm and forest
culture (_sartage_ and _furetage_) are still quite extensively
practised. The production of saw-timber under these practices is
naturally small. Of the 40 cubic feet of wood per acre produced in the
better class of managed state and communal properties, only 10 cubic
feet are saw-logs, and if the private forests were taken into
consideration, the average product, on the whole would appear still
smaller, the private properties being mostly small, poorly managed, and
largely coppice. Neither the owners, nor their managers and guards have,
as a rule, any professional education, although the means of obtaining
it exist in the schools at Nancy and Barres.
Blessed for the largest part with a most favorable climate and with rich
soil of tertiary formation, the difficulties in forestry practices
experienced by other, more northern and continental countries are hardly
known. Hence many practices which are successful in France might in
Germany prove disastrous, and such yields as some of the oak forests
show, unattainable.
The greatest interest for the forester attaches to the methods of
conversion of coppice into timber forest, to the extensive areas
reforested during the last century, which probably exceed 3 million
acres, and to the reboisement work in the mountains.