Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/417

FORESTS 403 has his headquarters at Paris, assisted by a board of administra tion, who meet twice a week, and are charged with the working of the forests, questions of rights and law, finance, and plantation works. The establishment consists of 36 conservators, 174 inspec tors, 310 sub-inspectors, and about 420 gardes gbieraux, the number being regulated by the exigencies of the service. The department is supplied with officers from the forest school at Nancy. This institution was founded in 1824, when M. Lorentz, who had studied forestry in Germany, was appointed its first director. Any French youth from eighteen to twenty years of age may compete for admission to the school on producing certain certifi cates and filing a bond guaranteeing the payment of 1500 francs a year, and COO francs from the date of his joining the establishment till he is promoted garde general on full pay. The entrance examina tion comprises arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, physical sciences, chemistry, plan-drawing, mechanics, German, history, geo graphy, and free-hand drawing. The pupils pass two years in the school, and during a third attend lectures, while taking practical charge of portions of forest near Nancy. The school is under a director, a sub-director, and eight professors, besides two officers for military instruction. In the winter session eight hours daily are spent iu the school, and the summer term is chiefly passed in forest tours, the pupils accompanying the professors, who apply the teach ing of the school to objects found in the forest. There are usually 45 to 50 French pupils. The French Government has kindly extended the benefits of this well-equipped institution to candidates for employment in the state forests of British India. Switzerland. Forests. in Switzerland cover about 18 per cent., or one-sixth of the whole area, but in some of the cantons excessive deforesting has taken place. On the precipitous mountain sides the forest is found to have a powerful influence in preventing the formation and descent of avalanches, and in the Alps the woods are preserved, though insufficiently, by law. A distinguishing feature of Swiss forests is the prevalence of the silver fir, Abies pect uiata, which covers large tracts on the mountains up to 4000 feet; the larch is sometimes mixed with beech to 3000 feet, more rarely with oak and walnut to 1800 feet, and chestnut to 750 feet. Each canton regulates the management of forests within its own limits; but efforts repeatedly made in the Federal Council for the introduction of a uniform system of forest legisla tion throughout the republic have not yet been success ful. Vigorous attempts to preserve and restore wooded land are made in some of the cantons, and difficulties in the transport of timber from inaccessible points have been skilfully overcome by the ingenious adaptation of wooden tramways and iron rope slips. Italy. The kingdom of Italy comprises such different climates that within its limits we find the birch and pines of northern Europe, and the olive, fig, manna-ash, and palm of more southern latitudes. The ascertained extent of wood in 1872, including the wooded island of Sardinia, was, according to Siemoni, 5,025,893 hectares, or about 17-63 per cent, of the entire kingdom, a proportion which might with advantage be greatly increased, but in the latest return it has fallen to 12-34. By the republic of Venice and the duchy of Genoa forestal legislation was attempted at various periods from the 15th century downwards. These efforts were not successful, as the Governments were lax in enforcing the laws. In 1789 Pius VI. issued regulations prohibiting felling without licence, and later orders were published by his successors in the Pontifical States. In Lombardy the woods, which fifty years ago reached nearly down to Milan, have almost disappeared. The province of Como contains only a remnant of the primitive forests, and the same may also be said of the southern slopes of Tyrol. At Ravenna there is still a large forest of stone pine, Pinus Pinea, though it has been reduced to a third of its former extent. The plains of Tuscany are adorned with planted trees, the olive, mulberry, fig, and almond. Sardinia is rich in woods, which cover one fifth of the area, and contain a large amount of oak, Quercus Suber, Robur, and Cerris. In Sicily the forests have been long felled save the zone at the base of Mount Etna. The destruction of woods has been gradual but persistent; in the end of the 17th century the effects of denudation were first felt in the destructive force given te mountain torrents by the deforesting of the Apennines, and up to the present time the work of demolition con tinues. According to the statistics published by the Italian Government in 1870, there were 215,801 hectares of state forest, including woods attached to royal residences ; but by the sale, alienation, or destruction of the greater part, the area has since been very greatly reduced. Of com munal and private forests the extent is, according to Government statistics, 1870. Communal forests... 2, 169, 91 4 hectares Private forests 2,662,178 ,, 1877. 1,580,000 hectares. 2,040,401 Only about 1,500,000 hectares are really covered with timber, as these figures include land with mere coppice or brushwood. In 1867 the monastic property of Vallombrosa, Tuscany, 30 miles from Florence, was purchased by Government for the purposes of a forest academy, which was opened in 1869, and energetic measures were initiated throughout the kingdom for the preservation of the remaining woods. It is to be regretted that, by a change of policy, the area of forest has now greatly decreased. The administrative staff consists of 3 inspectors general, 35 forest inspectors, and about 300 subordinate officials. The royal forest school at Vallombrosa is surrounded by a splendid forest of silver fir, and a large extent of broad-leaved chestnut, beech, and other trees is also attached to it. Pinus halepensis and Pinea and larch are the other prevailing conifers. The number of pupils is about 60, and the course of study resembles that at Nancy. A forest periodical is regularly published at Florence. Director di Berenger, who has superintended the school from its foundation, is a man of great learning, and author of several important works on forestry. Spain and Portugal are very deficient in woodland. The Peninsula is not unsuited to the growth of timber, as evinced by the noble forests which existed in the times of the Moors, especially in the southern provinces. There was a code of forest laws in Spain in the reign of Philip II., but it seems never to have been carried out, and the fine forests have long since disappeared. The evils of denudation are perhaps nowhere more signally exemplified than in Spain, and " Rentzsch even goes so far as to ascribe the political decadence of Spain wholly to the destruction of the forests" (Marsh, p. 306). Although her physical conditions render a large extent of forest almost indispens able to industrial progress, Spain may be said to be the only European country, with perhaps the exception of Great Britain, in which there has been no provision for the protection of woods. The evergreen oak (Quercus Hex], and its congener the cork oak (Quercus Suber), are found associated with Pinus Pinaster, "The Sierra de las Albujarras, southward of the city of Granada, is clothed with fir woods up to the peaks on certain places, so that the existing forests would appear to be the remnants of a destroyed girdle of coniferous trees, formerly covering all these chains. In the fluviatile valleys of the Sierra Nevada isolated groups of trees present themselves, the wrecks of larger woods " (Henfrey, p. 295). In central Spain and on the slopes of the Pyrenees there are still considerable tracts covered Avith Pinus Laricio, P. pyrenaica, and P. 7ia7c2)cnsis, -while on the northern coast Pinus Pinaster abounds. The sweet chestnut, indigenous in Spain, forms forests more or less cultivated for the sake of its fruit, which is an important article of food. A forest school has been lately established in the Escorial, and good results from the training there may be hoped for. The proportion of woodland in Portugal is nearly the same as that of Spain ; but a system of management is in