58 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 
includes the northern: part of the Odenwald, the government is 
buying woodlands at a minimum price of $360 an acre, while in the 
adjoining grand duchy of Baden, where the state is not so eager 
to acquire private holdings, there is paid not over $120 an acre for 
woodlands, under otherwise equal conditions. 
The growth of white pine is particularly good everywhere in the 
Odenwald, and on the better classes of soil and on northern slopes 
some very successful results have been obtained with hickory, black 
walnut, red oak and other foreign hardwoods. Beautiful pole- 
woods of silver fir and spruce are seen everywhere and Scotch pine 
is not uncommon. On good soils, however, it is usually the policy 
to make every effort to retain and build up the mixed hardwood 
stands of oak, ash, maple, basswood and cherry. 
One of the interesting ranges of the Odenwald forests is that of 
Affoltenbach, under the administration of Forstmeister Strack, con- 
sisting of about 8000 acres, one-half being state forests, and the 
other half communal forests, owned by ten different towns and 
hamlets. That of Affoltenbach contains about 1000 acres, and the 
sale of material is conducted by the town council or by the Burger- 
meister. 
By 1870 the price of oak tan bark had reached such a high figure 
that many towns were tempted to convert their forests into coppice, 
which yielded large returns in short rotations. By 1885 the price of 
oak tan bark had declined to an unprofitable figure and these towns 
were confronted with the problem of reconverting their practically 
valueless coppice into “seed” or “high forests.” The poverty of 
the soil and the aggressive growth of heather (Calluna vul- 
garis) in the coppice forests have made this a very difficult and 
slow as well as expensive process. Here can be seen as nowhere 
else the relative ability of different tree species to conquer the 
heather, for they have tried almost every conceivable combination to 
overcome its aggressive growth. 
Prior to the oak coppice forests, heather was not a serious menace 
in the forests of this range, and the factors which have brought 
about its domination of the soil, while they could not have been 
anticipated at that time, are now well enough understood. The best 
explanation of this ecological condition which we have in English 
is F. V. Coville’s investigations on upland heather soil. He found 
that oak leaves do not only decay very slightly but that they are 
decidedly acid in reaction even when two or three years old. In 
these forests of the Affoltenbach range the introduction of the 
coppice system permitted much sunlight to reach the litter upon the 
