THE STATE FORESTS OF SAXONV. I 83 



indoors as well as a fair amount of responsibility attached to 

 the post. Besides having control of some 4000 acres of woods 

 the Forstttieister generally takes a very prominent part in local 

 government, especially in thinly populated districts. While 

 referring to the duties of the forest officer, it is necessary to point 

 out that he has practically nothing to do with the financial side 

 of the management, the work of the cashier and accountant 

 being carried out by a separate office known as the Forstkasse 

 or Forstrentamt, which has small branches distributed among 

 the wooded districts. This office has charge of all the money 

 accounts, payment of wages, receipts from timber sales, the 

 arrangement of credit, and so on. Formerly these duties were 

 performed by the Forstmeister himself, but it is certainly a far 

 better arrangement to have a separate organisation for dealing 

 with such matters, both from the point of view of the State and 

 the Forstmeister. In certain respects the forest officer works 

 in conjunction with the Forstrentamt, for example, when there 

 is an auction sale of timber (nearly all the wood is disposed of 

 in this manner) the forest officer must be present, although the 

 sale is actually conducted by the Forstrentaint officials. He is 

 there to answer questions as to the accessibility of the particular 

 lots — wood-merchants often buying timber without first seeing 

 it — and generally to supervise the sale, having the right to with- 

 draw any lot which he thinks is not fetching a fair price. The 

 system of book-keeping adopted in the Saxon forest service is 

 somewhat complicated, but is simpler than that found in 

 Prussia, where the Forstmeister is generally provided with a 

 secretary. The Saxon forest officer is responsible for all 

 accounts relating to the amount of timber felled and sold, and 

 is required to fill in very detailed forms as to the quantity and 

 kinds of timber and other products which his forest produces in 

 the year. Anyone accustomed only to the manner in which the 

 forest accounts are treated in this country can have but a poor 

 idea of the labour entailed when these are properly kept, 

 especially in the case of State woods. The making out of sale 

 catalogues, the checking in the wood of every log felled, the 

 marking of the trees to be taken out in the thinnings, and the 

 close superintendence of the nursery work and planting are among 

 the duties of a Forstmeister entailing a considerable amount of 

 labour. 



The " Revier." — The Forest Range or /Sevier (the area of 



