216 FIRST BOOK OF FOKESTKY 



In France this reaction did serious and permanent 

 damage; the forests everywhere were slashed and cleared, 

 and the great expense of restocking the southern Alps, 

 and the enormous sums paid every year to Sweden and 

 Russia for lumber which the short-lived coppice woods of 

 France are unable to furnish, are the fines paid for folly. 



The people of the Teutonic lands were not so readily 

 moved, and their conservative attitude with regard to the 

 forest has been fully rewarded. In densely populated 

 Germany the forests cover twenty-six per cent of all land ; 

 about one third of these forests belongs to the govern- 

 ments, about one half to private owners, and the rest to 

 cities and villages. In Prussia and Saxony the private 

 people can do with their forest whatever they choose, cut 

 and clear as they please; but in most of the states the 

 government looks upon a forest as an inheritance which 

 the owner may use, but which he may not mismanage, and 

 may never destroy without giving satisfactory reasons. 



Most of the forests of Germany are of pine and spruce. 

 Nearly all of the government forests are " timber forests," 

 and are managed on a rotation of about eighty to a hundred 

 years, so that all timber is cut long before it is overripe. 



The majority of these forests are in small bodies, in 

 the midst of settlements, and have, therefore, good per- 

 manent roads, a local market, and ample protection. The 

 sawmill here is not a temporary affair, some mills having 

 been in operation for several centuries. 



