NOTES ON A VISIT TO BAVARIAN AND SAXON FORESTS. 151 



Government to the peasants, for 20s. to 25s. per acre. These 

 lands are all irrigated by the streams passing through them, and 

 three fine crops of hay are usually secured. The peasants were 

 busy cutting and harvesting their hay crop as we passed, and in 

 most of the places it was excellent. Individual effort was clearly 

 to be traced here, as in other parts, showing that those who 

 were industrious reaped a much heavier crop than those who 

 were inattentive to the irrigation. I may add that the same 

 remark applies to the cultivated lands, although generally, as I 

 have stated, they are very poor, — so poor, in many instances, 

 that the scare-crows were not hidden by the crop, which was 

 in ear. 



The Spessart is a block of forest consisting of 112,000 acres in 

 the Kingdom of Bavaria, formed by a bend in the river Main, 

 1 100 to 2000 feet above sea-level. The rock and soil are of Old 

 Red Sandstone, and of the driest kind. The soil is a loam or 

 sandy loam, and its depth depends upon whether the underlying 

 rock is hard or soft. The trees in the forest are beech, oak, spruce, 

 Scots pine, Douglas fir, Weymouth pine, birch, and aspen. 

 Formerly it was all of beech, conifers being introduced recently 

 to make up blanks occasioned by the rights of the peasantry, 

 which are exercised chiefly along the edge of the forest. These 

 peasant rights are very complicated, and vary greatly in different 

 localities. On the whole, however, they are — (a) The peasants 

 get all dry wood standing or fallen of 4 inches diameter, measured 

 12 feet from the ground, and they have the right to enter the 

 forest every Tuesday and Friday, except in the months of May, 

 June, and July, (d) They get faggot-wood 2 inches diameter in the 

 middle, including the produce of regular cutting ; and in the exercise 

 of thinning, all of this size must be left on the ground for them. 

 (c) They get mast for their pigs, and are allowed to put them into 

 the wood from 29th September to 2nd February. All woods 

 under regeneration are closed, however, and the simplest means 

 are sufficient to close them. It is done by knotting a small bunch 

 of straw to the branch of a tree in the district to be closed, and 

 this is more effectual amongst these law-abiding people than a 

 deer-fence of barbed wire would be in Scotland, (d) They have 

 the right of grazing, but they do not exercise it except for geese 

 and swine, (e) The peasants are also entitled to take litter from 

 the woods, but this right is regulated, and the woods are not 

 open to them until the regeneration process is completed, and 



