REPORT OF THE STATE BOTANIST I9I3 69 
tracts of timber which they still hold and operate. That their early 
operations consisted in taking only the best is testified by Jager- 
schmidt who, in 1828, writes that the tracts over which they had 
logged contained still many fine trees over 1 foot in diameter and 
100 feet tall. Only the very best trees were taken out in the same 
way that the early lumbering operations in this country were con- 
ducted. 
The lowest and easiest slopes were logged first and hence today 
we find for the most part the best and oldest stands (second growth) 
closest to the streams and in the most accessible places, while at the 
higher altitudes and most inaccessible places where the good roads 
have only penetrated within the past 50 years we find the youngest 
stands, for it was here that the primeval growth was cut last. 
Stumpage prices in the Black Forest have risen very rapidly, 
even recently. In the past 5 years from $13 to $17, and from $20 
to $26 for the better stuff. Only since there has come to be a 
market for any and all products of the forest have working plans 
come to be a feature of Black Forest operations. Formerly the 
working plans were made for periods of 100 years, but with the 
increasing realization that conditions of market and transportation 
and demand change rapidly, these working plan periods have been 
made shorter and shorter, until plans for 10 year periods are con- 
sidered quite sufficient in most places. 
A working plan of a German forest is an interesting document 
and consists of: 
a Inventory of values at hand (statement of facts) ; and includes 
timber, pasture, hunting rights, value of land, minerals, water 
power, mill property, roads, logs cut and on hand, nursery 
sites, agricultural land, etc. 
b Boundaries, organization, means of logging, etc. 
c Market and relative demand for the various products, local or 
foreign. 
d Working plan (that is, changes of fact to be made or provided 
for). Herein is outlined the work to be carried out on the 
forest in the future. 
What a working plan provides is of course largely governed by 
the owner’s opinion. An optimistic owner will cut little; hence 
changes will be toward increasing the investment. A pessimistic 
owner will want heavy cuts, discarding all but what commands the 
highest price (as pulp wood in Saxony). In Saxony they did not 
rely on an increase in stumpage; in the Black Forest they did and 
