The Subdivision of Forests 187 



may in turn be grouped together into annual cutting areas, cutting 

 series, blocks, divisions, and working sections. No two States in 

 Germany use exactly the same method of subdivision, and the 

 different German writers rarely use a uniform terminology in 

 discussing the fundamentals of subdivision work. 



In America, some administrative units have been created. The 

 United States Forest Service for the better administration of its 

 land has divided it into six Districts with 163 National Forests. 

 The forest land owned by the State of Pennsylvania, now aggre- 

 gating 1,000,000 acres, is divided into forty-nine State forests with 

 an average area of a little over 20,000 acres per forest. A forest, 

 whether it be National or State, is an area under the charge of one 

 executive officer or general manager, known as a forest supervisor 

 in case of a National Forest, and a forester in case of a State 

 forest in Pennsylvania. Practically nothing, however, has been 

 done in America in the way of subdividing the administrative 

 units or executive charges into units of management, generally 

 known as compartments. This article aims to present some of the 

 German and Austrian experiences upon this subject as one learns 

 them in books and observes them in traveling through and study- 

 ing their forests in person, together with a plan of procedure 

 which has been used on a part of one of the State forests of 

 Pennsylvania. 



The earlier German foresters could not agree regarding the 

 meaning of the word compartment. Some considered the com- 

 partment as a "unit of silvicultural treatment," while others con- 

 sidered it as a "unit of working or management." In the former 

 case the compartment was dependent upon the condition of the 

 stand and the length of the rotation. After a century of experi- 

 ence most of the German foresters are convinced that the sub- 

 division of a forest should be kept independent of the rotation 

 and the condition of the stand, except where these agree with the 

 topographic and other natural features. Differences may occur 

 within a compartment with respect to species, silvicultural system, 

 age, site-quality, and density of stocking, which will require a 

 differentiation of stands. In this event, it will be necessary to 

 divide the compartments into stands or subcompartments. Sub- 

 compartments may be defined as "units of treatment," because 

 each stand comprising a subcompartment usually requires a 



