In the direction of forest organization, it is stated by Clavé that in 1860 only 900,000 acres of the State domain were under a regulated management, namely 380,000 acres in timber forest and 520,000 in coppice with standards, leaving about 1,500,000 acres at that time still merely exploited. The same writer states that of the corporation or communal forests hardly any are under management for sustained yield, and private forest management is not mentioned in this connection. Even to-day less than one-third of the total area is under systematic control. In 1908 still, about 14% of the State forests were without working plans, and 15% in selection forest.
The method of forest organization employed, outside of the crude determinations of a felling budget in the selection forest, is an imitation of Cotta’s combined area and volume allotment, with hardly any attempt of securing normality, introduced in 1825. Characteristic, and differing from the German model, is the practice of actually collocating in each district (canton) the periodic felling areas (affectations) on the ground so as to secure a schematic felling series or periodic block (séries). This is done often at great sacrifice. Lately, various, more pliable modifications have come into vogue (méthode de l’affectation unique) and freer methods (méthode du quartier de régénération), somewhat similar to Judeich’s stand management, are proposed. Altogether working plans, such as are elaborated in Germany, are rare, and yield tables are still looked upon by Huffel as doubtfully useful.
The management of the State forests is extremely conservative, large accumulations of old stock, the holding over of one quarter for reserve, and high rotations—only apparently based on maximum volume production, since the statistical data are scanty—are characteristic. The opposite conditions appear in the private forests.
6. Education and Literature.
In the earlier times the service established was as we have seen, often, nay mostly in incompetent hands; the offices of forestmasters were purchasable, were given to courtiers as benefices, and became hereditary. In all these, higher professional knowledge was unnecessary. The ignorance of the subordinates was as great as that of their German counterparts, but lasted longer. Hardly any book literature on the subject of forestry developed before the 19th century, and educational institutions had to wait until long past the beginning of that century.
The first, and up to the present, only forest school, came into existence after a considerable campaign, directed by Baudrillart, Chief of Division, Administration Générale des Forêts, and professor of political economy. His campaign in the Annales Forestières, the first volume of which appeared in 1808, and in other writings as in his Dictionnaire des eaux et forêts (1825), led to the establishment of the forest school at Nancy in 1825.
The first director of this school, Bernard Lorentz, having become acquainted with and befriended by G. L. Hartig, and his assistant, afterward his son-in-law and successor, Adolphe Parade, having studied under Cotta (1817-1818) in Tharandt, this school introduced the science of forestry as it had then been developed in Germany; but later generations under Nanquette, Bagneris, Broillard, Boppe and Puton, imbued with patriotism, attempted in a manner to strike out on original lines.
As a consequence of the “unpatriotic” German tendencies of its first directors the continuance of the school at Nancy was several times threatened, there being friction between the administration of the school and the service, which in 1844 came to a climax, agents in the service being employed without preparation in the school, a condition which lasted until 1856.
Even to date an active service of 15 years is considered equivalent to the education in the school for advancement in the service.
In 1839, Lorentz was disgracefully displaced, in spite of his great merits, because he advocated too warmly the application of the superior system of regeneration under shelterwood to replace the coppice and selection forest, an incident almost precisely repeated in the State of New York in abandoning its State College at Cornell University; and in other respects the two cases appear parallel.[8] Parade, the successor of Lorentz being imbued with the same heretical doctrines was constantly in trouble, and in 1847, a most savage attack in the legislature was launched which threatened the collapse of the school. This condition lasted until Parade’s death, in 1864, when Nanquette assumed guidance of the school and steered in more peaceful waters by avoiding all ideas at reforms and innovations, but otherwise improving the character of the school and introducing the third year study. But he, too, was much criticized and in difficulties until 1880; nor was Puton, his successor, free from troubles, until in 1889 a new regime and new regulations were enacted.