A Brief History of Forestry.

FRANCE

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., 12o, 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.

1. Development of Forest Property

As in Austria, private ownership of forest property is largely preponderant, while state property is small.

In ancient Gaul, the Romans found the forest outside of holy groves as communal property. After the conquest, all the unseated lands, especially the extensive mountain forests, were declared either State or imperial property – more than half the whole territory – and were managed as res publica by the administrators of public affairs. And while later, with the advent of the German hordes, property conditions shaped themselves somewhat according to their ways, the influence of the Roman law and institutions were never quite eradicated.

The country, outside of the public property, was by the Romans divided into communities, called fundus, each placed under a Gallic seigneur (eques), a former chief, now proprietor, his tribesmen and the remnants of the earlier sessile population becoming serfs. One-third of the fundus was handed to the serfs as their property and divided among them – the first private property – ; another third was retained by the seigneur and utilized by means of the service of the serfs (corvées), but usually also burdened by rights of user on their part; and the last third became common property of the community at large. There remained, however, here and there, also, some of the original free communes or Mark (vicus), so that five different property classes were in existence.

The 5th century saw the Teutonic tribes, Suevi, Alani, Vandals and Burgundians, overwhelm the Romans, who had for 500 years kept the Gallo-Celtic population under their rule; and these were followed by Visigoths and Franks, who in turn took possession of the country. The conquerors did not drive out the Gallo-Romans, but merely quartered themselves on them under the euphemistic title of “guests,” assuming to themselves two-thirds of each estate, and leaving the remainder to their “hosts.” On these lands, undoubtedly, similar economic and social institutions were developed as in Germany. Communal ownership under these was at first developed to such an extent that the Salic laws declared all trees which were not reserved by special sign as subject to the use of all and any of the Markers. But later, as in Germany, the socialistic Mark was followed by the feudal system with its ban forests and the creation of great landed proprietors or lords.

When Clovis, the king of the Franks, in the first decade of the 6th century defeated the Visigoths and took possession of the country (see p. 29), he found communal forests of the villagers (vicus), property of seigneurs (equites), royal forests and State forests, remnants of Roman origin. The latter properties and much of the Mark forests he claimed for himself and divided two-thirds among his vassals; but the larger part of the other third became also gradually property of the nobility and church, so that, by the 12th century, only a relatively small royal property remained. Afterwards, the royal or State property grew again in various ways, as the power of the kings grew. In 1539, Francis I declared the same inalienable. But neither himself nor his successors paid heed to this self-imposed prohibition and, whenever financial troubles made it expedient, they disposed of some of their holdings.

By the ordinance of 1566 (Edit de Moulins), King Charles IX again declared the domain of the crown inalienable. Nevertheless he himself in the same year, and repeatedly afterwards, sold parts of his domain. Henry III, in 1579, renewed the ordinance of non-alienation and restored some of the last parcels to the domain by the exercise of the royal right. Himself and his successors, however, continually broke this contract, and the royal domain decreased while that of the seigneurs grew. Similarly to what happened in Germany, the church property was taken by machination or force to increase the holdings of kings or seigneurs. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the revolution in 1789, the royal domain comprised not more than 1,200,000 acres, producing a net income of 1.2 million dollars. Then followed an era of ups and downs, continuous changes of policy, increases and decreases of the property until with the inauguration of the republic, in 1871, comparative stability was secured.

In 1791, after the revolution, the royal property became national domain, and by further spoliation of church property, and otherwise, attained an area of 4,300,000 acres. In the law of 1791, a distinction was made between the inalienable domain, which comprises roads, canals, fortresses, harbors, etc., and the alienable national domain, including the forest and other property derived from royal or crown domains. To this national domain was added, by the law of 1792, the forest property of the refugees of the revolution which was, however, later for the most part restored or indemnified. Finally, when, by the treaty of Basel (1795), the French frontier had been pushed to the Rhine, the total state forest had grown to around 6,500,000 acres, nearly one-third of the total forest area.

But, through sales and otherwise, this area had, by 1815, been reduced to 3,200,000 acres, and during the period until 1872, the area had been further again 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 similar 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, by written instruments or contracts, in which limitations and reservations of rights are imposed by the seigneurs. One of the most usual conditions of the contract was the prevention of clearing or sale; at the same time a new set of rights of user, this time on the part of the seigneur, brought new complications. One of the worst features originating in the 14th century as an outgrowth of feudal relations, was “the right of the third” (triage), which gave to the seigneur, whenever he wished to exercise it, one-third of the property free of all rights of user. In this way, the communal area was diminished until, in 1667, the widespread abuse of this right led to an ordinance abolishing it. It was, however, re-established by the ordinance of 1669 in all cases where the forest had been gratuitously ceded by the seigneurs, or when the remaining two-thirds was deemed sufficient for the needs of the parish. Not until 1790-1792 was this exorbitant right finally abolished.

As an outgrowth of the revolutionary doctrine of 1793, the most radical legislation decreed presumptive ownership by the municipal corporations of all lands for which the claimant could not show a deed of purchase, excluding any title acquired as a result of feudal relations. The day of revenge of all old wrongs had come, and, appeal to justice being useless, the municipalities increased their holdings freely. Although later legislation attempted to arrest this public theft and to restitute some of the stolen property, much of the communal forest area of to-day consists of this kind of ill-gotten property.

Another method of increasing municipal properties was by exchange of territory for the rights of user. Efforts to get rid of these rights, which grew up as described and to prevent their extension were instituted much earlier than in Germany, Philip of Valois expressly forbidding such extension as early as 1346. Nevertheless they continued to grow so that, by the middle of the 18th century, they were as general and afforded as great a hindrance to forest management, as in Germany. The ordinance of 1669 also provided for the extinction of these rights, apparently without much success, and the troublesome times after 1789 increased their number. Only when the orderly regime following the reign of Napoleon gave rise to the Code Forestier (1827), was a systematic attempt for their extinguishment by the cession of territory and cash payment begun, and by this time the extinction may be considered practically concluded, at least for the state and communal property.

Private property, not seignorial, was but little developed before the 16th century; after that the frequent sales by the kings and barons gave rise to small forest owners, so that, by 1789, over 10 million acres were in such possession. During the 19th century this grew by purchase, by cessions, and by reforestation of waste lands to double that amount, not less than two million acres being added by the latter cause alone, while some decrease came from clearings.

In 1905, private holdings comprised 15 million acres or 65 per cent. of the total; the communal and institutional forests 4.8 million acres or 21 per cent., leaving for State forest 2.9 million acres, or a little over 12 per cent. of the total of 22.7 million acres. Twenty-two per cent. of state and communal property is, however, waste land, and such areas in private hands may be six times as large; there being altogether between 14 and 15 million acres of waste lands.

2. Development of Forest Administration

In the earlier times, and, indeed, into the 18th century, the most important use of the forest was in the mast from oak and beech for the pigs and pasture for the cattle, besides firewood, for which mostly the soft woods were used. This was given free from the royal domain, and the administration consisted mainly in regulating this use. The main incentive for the regulation of forest use on the part of the king were the interests of the chase.

Towards the end of the ninth century, special forest officers, forestarii, are mentioned in Charlemagne’s celebrated capitularium, which describes in detail the administration of the public domains. These were, to be sure, only lower rank officials, working under mayors, intendants and the count (comes), who was the administrator and soon independent arbiter of the royal domain as well as of the administration of justice in general. His office early became hereditary.

The first mention of “forest masters” (maîtres des eaux et forêts) dates back to 1291, and later ordinances mention higher officials. But the credit for a full and detail organization and regulation of management belongs to Charles V, the wise Valois, in his ordinance of 1376. This organization, after various changes, by the end of the 16th century, under the reign of Henry IV, took about the following form:

Under a general superintendent of forests, titulary head of the forest service, a number of grands maîtres, généraux réformateurs des eaux et forêts, some 17, were appointed by the King to watch over the conduct of the maîtres and gruyers, officers in charge of the forest districts (maîtrises). All of these officials had their deputies and lieutenants under various designations (procureur du roi, greffier, gardemarteau, sergent du garde, etc.)

A stamping hammer (kept by the gardemarteau) was employed for marking trees which defined the boundaries, or which were to be reserved in the fellings. In addition to these regular officers there were employed a great number of capitaines des chasses whose functions, as the title indicates, related mainly to the chase. The function of the forestmasters did not stop with the supervision of the use of the forest and sale of wood, but included also the jurisdiction of all misdemeanors and crimes committed in the royal, and later, in all forests. They became thus gradually a privileged class of immense power. Graft and sale of offices became the order of the day. Sometimes the offices were made hereditary, and again were limited to three or four years’ tenure, in the endeavour to break up the shameful practices. For nearly three centuries all efforts at reform were failures.

The method of prescribing the rules and regulations during the 12th to 17th century was by ordinances like those issued by the German princes; the first ordinance on record being that issued by Louis VI in 1215. These ordinances usually appeared under the name Le fait des eaux et forêts (the matters of waters and woods), curiously enough thus suggesting the relation of the two. The latter term was used exactly like that of the German Forst, designating the reserved territory under the ban, while bois is used to designate actual woodland (silva).

In 1376, Charles V, in his endeavor to build up a navy against England, made reservations for naval timber and also issued the ordinance of Melun, a general forest code, the provisions of which lasted largely until the reform of 1669. In 1402, the many ordinances, often contradictory were codified under one text, and another codification was made under Francis I in 1515.

By the middle of the 17th century the devastation of forests had progressed so far, and the abuses in the management of the royal domain had become so evident that Louis XIV’s great minister, Colbert, was induced to make the historical remark “France will perish for lack of woods.” Again the needs of the navy was the prime incentive of the vigorous reform which he instituted after a most searching investigation. The result was the celebrated forest ordinance of 1669. For this purpose he appointed, in 1662, a commission which not only investigated conditions but was clothed with power to reform the abuses which it might discover. For this work he selected four trusted men outside of the forest service, to whom later more were added, and gave them the aid of technical advisers, among whom Froudoir seems to have been most prominent. Colbert himself gave close attention to this work of reform. As the first act, the commission recommended the ceasing of all cutting in the royal forests, and, after deliberation and consultation with interested parties through eight years, the final law was enacted, a masterpiece whose principles and prescriptions to an extent have persisted into the 19th century. The commission from time to time made reports, giving their findings in detail, and these form a most interesting record of conditions prevailing at that time. As one of the historians (Joubain) puts it, “the commissioners did not recoil before long hours of inspection nor high influence, they neither hesitated to declare against, nor prosecute, great and small alike, nor to pronounce a most serious sentence.” A thorough cleaning up was done and a complete reorganization secured.

By this ordinance, three special courts of adjudication in matters pertaining to the forests were established, with special officers whose duties were carefully defined, namely the courts of the Gruries, of the Maîtrises and the Tables de Marbre. The first named, lower grade courts took cognizance of the lesser offences, abuses, wastes and malversations, disputes in regard to fishing or chase, and murders arising out of these; gruries being the woods belonging to individuals in which the jurisdiction and the profit from such jurisdiction belonged to the king, or at least to the seigneurs. The courts of the maîtrise referred to the forest territory placed under administration of the maîtres particuliers (Forstmeister), and were established near the many royal forests as courts of appeal in forest matters. A final appeal could be made to the tables de marbre (courts of the marble table), which also decided on the more weighty questions of proprietorship by whatever term held, and especially civil and criminal cases relating to the eaux et forêts; the wrong doings in the discharge of official duties (abus), contraventions to the orders and regulations, misdemeanors or depredations (délit); and all kinds of fraud not included under those cited (malversations).

The whole country was divided into 18 arrondissements of grandes-maîtrises des eaux et forêts and these were divided into 134 maîtrises, each under a maître particulier, with a lieutenant, a garde-marteau, a garde général, two arpenteurs and a number of gardes. A financial branch for the handling of moneys, and the judicial branch represented by the three courts described above, completed the organization, which lasted until the revolution, albeit some details were changed soon after its enactment, and the offices became again purchaseable and hereditary.

The sale of royal forests was again forbidden, penalties being provided for the eventual purchaser. Theft and incendiarism were severely punished, and specific rules of management were established.

Clearings could only be made by permission even on the part of private owners. The methods of sale and harvest were determined. The prescriptions of older ordinances were renewed to the effect that at least 13 to 16 seed trees (baliveaux) per acre in the coppice, and 8 seed trees in timber forest, were to be reserved in all forests without exception. Private owners were not to cut these seed trees before they were 40 years old in the coppice, and 120 years in the timber forest, while in the public and church forests these seed trees were treated like reserves. Similarly, the prescription that no woods were to be cut before 10 years of age was revived from former ordinances, the time later (1787) being increased for public forests to 25 years. Also the obligation to keep one-fourth of the forest in reserve, which Charles IX had decreed in 1560, was renewed for the public forests (those belonging to corporations and other public institutions). For the fir forests of the mountains, which had become important as furnishers of ship masts, special regulations were issued, and the mast timber reserved for the crown.