6 FORESTRY 



The earliest effort to control utilisation so that uniformity 

 of forest yield might result, was made in the year 1359, at 

 Erfurt, in Germany. The forest was divided into parts, one 

 of which was annually cut over in rotation. Coppice shoots 

 restocked the area by natural means, and the falls were so 

 planned that a sustained yield was rendered possible. 



The first mention of the formation of pine woods by 

 direct sowing occurs ten years later in connection with the 

 town forest of Niirnberg. During the fifteenth century, this 

 practice became general throughout South-west Germany. 



3. From the end of the Middle Ages to the 

 middle of the Eighteenth Century 



During the period from the beginning of the sixteenth to 

 the middle of the eighteenth century no new form of 

 ownership of woodlands arose, but those already existing 

 underwent considerable modification. More particularly the 

 possessions of the Crown were enormously extended. This 

 came about in three ways : ( I ) by the appropriation of hitherto 

 unclaimed land ; (2) by the secularisation of much Church 

 property as a consequence of the Reformation ; and (3) by 

 the decline of the village communal system. 



Chiefly through the working of the last of these factors 

 the possessions of the landed nobility were increased. 

 During the sweeping changes in the political and social 

 conditions the communes had completely lost their former 

 status, and the Thirty Years' War gave the death-blow to 

 the political influence of the peasantry. The ever-increasing 

 power of the Crown gradually embraced the control of forests 

 belonging to the peasants, and with the feeling of independ- 

 ence gone, the latter lost also their interest in their common 

 property. Thus it came about that the great nobles obtained 

 more and more power, and managed, by various devices, to 

 possess themselves of the former communal forests. At first 

 the commoners exercised their prerogatives much as of old, 

 but this they did in an ever-diminishing degree. 



