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.