178 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



departments. Department I. — Rates and Taxes. Department 

 II. — State lands, including forests, mines and State technical 

 colleges, etc. Department III. — Railways and Post Office. 

 The chief of the forestry section of Department II. is an 

 Oberlandsforstmeister who is assisted by one Oberforsirat, one 

 Oberjorsimeisier, and other junior officials. 



Inspection, — For the purposes of inspection the State forests 

 of Saxony are divided up into nine districts, each of which has 

 a resident inspecting officer with the rank of Oberforstmeister, 

 The total area of the State forests in Saxony is 445,380 acres, 

 so that each inspector has about 49,486 acres under his charge 

 divided up into twelve Reviere. This system is one of the 

 three different systems of inspection found in Germany, and is 

 called the "local Forsimeister^' system, as the inspector is bound 

 to reside within the area over which he has supervision. It 

 has many points to recommend it, the chief being that, as the 

 inspecting officer resides within the area, he has a better 

 opportunity for organising the sale of timber and the close 

 inspection of the woods. Again, it enables a less experienced 

 Forstmeister to be put in charge of a forest Revier, as he is 

 always able to refer to the Oberforsttneister oihis district in cases 

 of difficulty. The system found in Prussia — known as the 

 Government Forstmeister system — differs from this, as in each 

 Government there is a small council of two to three Government 

 officials, one of whom is a forester, and they administer, besides 

 other affairs, the forests in the district. In this case the Ober- 

 forstmeister has a considerably freer hand than in Saxony, the 

 decentralised management being, of course, partly due to the 

 very large area of Prussia as compared with Saxony. It 

 probably suits the Prussian conditions better than the Saxon 

 method would. In the case of Prussia the Obei-forstmeister is 

 responsible to the Minister of Agriculture, Lands and Forests. 

 In countries where there is but little State-owned forest, the 

 inspection is generally done from a Government Forestry Office; 

 often under the Department of Agriculture, situated in the 

 capital, which becomes the residence of the inspecting officers. 

 Such a system is found in some of the smaller German states 

 and in England. 



Management. — The unit of administration is the Revier or 

 forest range over which one Forstmeister, or Oberforster as he 

 is called when first appointed, has charge. The average size 



