He was succeeded by the now venerable Dr. J. Coaz as Inspector-General of the Bund (still active at 90 years of age), who also contributed to the science of mountain reboisement and in other directions. The work on the management of the City forest of Zürich by its long-time manager Meister is classic. Under the active direction of Anton Bühler for many years, the publication of (now under Dr. Engler) Mittheilungen der eidgenössischen Centralanstalt für das forstliche Versuchswesen, since 1891, have become important contributions to forestry science. In the direction of wood technology the name of L. Tetmajer, who is conducting timber tests, should be mentioned.
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.