210 FORESTKY INVESTIGATIONS U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTUKK. 



experienced considerable changes by the sale of State forests, the sales being due partly to 

 financial distress, partly to a mistaken application of Adam Smith's theories, which supposed that 

 free competition would lead to a better management and highest development of the forest 

 industry as well as of other industries. 



This tendency, however, was checked when the fallacy of the theory became apparent, 

 especially with reference to' a property that demands conservative treatment and involves such 



time element as we have seen. 



The hopes which were based on the success of individualistic efforts were not realized, and 

 although control of private action had been retained by the State authorities, this could not 

 always be exercised, and the necessity of strengthening the State forest administration became 

 apparent. The present tendency, therefore, is not only to maintain the State forests, but to 

 extend their area by purchase, mostly of devastated or deforested areas and by exchange for 

 agricultural lands from the public domain. Thus, in Prussia, the increase of State forest area has 

 been at the rate of 14,000 acres per year since 1867. 



In districts where small fanners own extensive areas of barrens a consolidation is effected, 

 the parcels of remaining forest and the barrens are put together, the State acquires these and 

 pays the owners either in money or other property. 



In Prussia, during the decade 1882-1891, 30,000 acres were in this way exchanged for 17,000 

 acres, and in addition some 200,000 acres, waste or poorly wooded, purchased at an expense of 

 $3,500,000, round numbers. During the same decade the reforestation of 80,000 acres of waste 

 lands was effected, Avhile nearly 75,000 acres in the State's possession remained to be reforested. 



The annual budget for these reforestations of waste lands has been $500,000 for several years. 



The area of barrens and poor soils, only fit for forest purposes in Prussia, is estimated at over 

 6,000,000 acres. 



The present distribution of the property classes for the whole Empire of the 35,000,000 acres 

 of forest is about as follows, varying, to be sure, very considerably in the States of the Confed- 

 eration : 



Per cent. 



State and Crown forests (of which the Crown owns less than 2 per cent) 32. 7 



Imperial forests 1 



Communal forests (5,000,000 acres) - 15.2 



Association forests 2. 5 



Institute forests 1-3 



Private forests 48.3 



The State and Crown forests are all under well-organized forest administrations, sometimes 

 accredited to the minister of finance, sometimes to the minister of agriculture. These yield an 

 annual net revenue of from $1 to $5 and $6 per acre of forest area, with a constant increase from 

 year to year, which will presently be very greatly advanced when the expenditures for road build- 

 ing and other improvements cease. 



In the State management the constant care is not to sacrifice the economic significance of the 

 forest to the financial benefits that can be derived, and the amount cut is most conservative. 



The Imperial forests are of course managed in the same spirit as the several State forests. 



While the present communities, villages, towns, ,ind cities are only political corporations, they 

 still retain in some cases in part the character of the "mark," which was based upon the holding 

 of property. 



The supervision which the princes exercised in their capacity of Obennarker or as possessor 

 of the right to the chase, remained, although based on other principles, as a function of the State 

 when the "mark" communities collapsed, the principles being that the State was bound to protect 

 the interest of the eternal juristical person of the community against the present trustees, that it 

 had to guard against conflicts between the interest of the individual and that of the community in 

 this property, and secure permanency of a piece of property which insured a continued and 

 increasing revenue. The principle upon which the control of these communal holdings rests is 

 then mainly a fiscal one. 



The degree of control and restriction varies in different localities. Sale and partition and 



