HANOVERIAN VILLAGE LIFE. 477 



dram-shop ; more than this I never dared to give, for fear of causing 

 an inroad of beggars upon the village. 



An imperial forester, with one or more deputies in each village of 

 his district, has complete control of all the woodland in his circle. By 

 him it is decided how much wood shall be cut each year for the use of 

 the commune or corporation, and without his consent not a stick can 

 be cut in any forest of his district. The commune of E owns fif- 

 teen hundred and thirty-eight acres of land, which has, since the set- 

 tlement of the village many generations ago, been planted in forest- 

 trees, None of this forest-land has ever been stripped of its trees and 

 devoted to agriculture, with the exception of a small part, which, on 

 account of its position near a much-traveled road, served during the 

 Thirty Years' war as a refuge and place of ambush for brigands and 

 highway robbers. This was, toward the end of the great war, cleared 

 and the land divided among the corporators. The forest-land belong- 

 ing to E is divided into forty parts, one of which may be cleared 



each year. On account of the large amount of extra labor caused by 

 the keeping up of nurseries, but few villages plant the land cleared by 

 them each year, most of them allowing the natural growth to spring 

 up on the cut portions. Although the natural growth of wood on 



which E depends for its supply does away with the need for a 



large nursery, the corporators are yet compelled to keep up a small 

 one, in order to plant high, wind-swept ridges where no seed has 

 lodged. This nursery, or Bcmmschule as it is called, is planted and 

 kept up by the labor of all the corporators. As a general thing, only 

 two days out of the year are spent by each citizen at commune work. 

 In the fall a meeting of the corporators is called, and it is then decided 

 when and how much wood shall be cut. The imperial forester is at 

 once notified, and, in company with the village forester, goes through 

 the part which is to be cut that year and marks all trees under an inch 

 in diameter except those which, from their fine form or good situation, 

 seem likely to make first-rate timber. The whole of the woodland to 

 be cut is then divided into sixty-six parts, and each corporator receives 

 a part, allotted by chance, on which he at once goes to work and clears 

 off the brush and marked trees. When this has been accomplished 

 throughout the whole tract, the imperial forester is again called, and 

 goes through the forest, marking all trees not large enough for build- 

 ing timber, and which are so warped, decayed, or top-killed as to be 

 unlikely to grow into good timber. These trees are then divided as 

 before, and each citizen cuts and carries away his share. Then, for 

 the third and last time, the forester goes through the tract, and marks 

 all the large trees which seem to be hollow-hearted or to have stopped 

 growing. These are then divided and cut like the rest, with the ex- 

 ceptions that the oaks are first stripped of their bai-k to be sold to tan- 

 ners for the benefit of the commune, and that the teacher and minis- 

 ter get none of this large wood because, the peasants say that, when a 



