226 FORESTRY INVESTIGATIONS U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



have remained practically constant for about thirty years, there being then as now in forest 

 20,000,000 acres; cultivated 42,000,000 acres, or about twice as much cultivated land as forest. 



Of the forest area, 8 per cent belongs to the crown, 30 to the state, 12.5 to villages or 

 municipalities, 1 to Stiftiingeu (Fouds), 2.7 to corporations, and 52.9 to private owners. This 

 ownership relation has changed a trifle during the last twenty years, the state and municipal 

 forests having gained a little over 1 percent at the expense of the private and corporation forests. 



Situated between latitude 49 to 55 N. and longitude 23 to 40 E. and occupying portions of 

 the extensive coast plain along Baltic and North seas, as well as covering parts of nine separate 

 mountain chains, the forests of Prussia naturally display considerable variety. Of the total 

 20,000,000 acres, about half falls to the plain, one fourth to the hilly, and one fourth to the regular 

 mountain districts. The climate is moderately cold; the mean or average temperature for summer 

 is about 60 to 65 F., varying but little for the different parts of the Kingdom, and being quite 

 uniform for all three summer mouths. Spring and fall, the latter a trine wanner and more even 

 than the former, have a mean temperature of about 45 F., while that of the winter months is 

 generally near the freezing point, the coldest weather for any one place and month being rarely 

 below 25 F. 



Prussia is a moderately humid country. The records from thirty to seventy years indicate an 

 even distribution of precipitation, varying generally between 22 and 28 inches, reaching a height 

 of over 32 inches, and only 3 out of about 40 stations. With regard to the manner of management, 

 the kind of timber raised, and the financial results of the work, the State forests, for which alone 

 exact statistics exist, may serve as examples, though the results are somewhat better in these 

 than in the forests of municipalities and private owners. 



The total area of State forest in 1893 was 2,404,757 hectares, or about 6,750,000 acres. This 

 total area has remained almost unchanged for over thirty years. During this time many large 

 and small tracts have been sold or exchanged to round off the State holdings and to satisfy 

 private rights, many of which had become extremely troublesome and proven a great hindrance 

 in the proper management of the woods. These sales and exchanges were fully balanced by 

 purchases, especially of poor, unproductive private forests and heath lands, for which purpose 

 of late the State appropriates annually the large sum of 1,01)0,000 marks ($250,000), the policy of 

 increasing the State holdings having been steadily pursued for more than fifty years. About two- 

 thirds of the State forests are situated in the North German plain, though some occur in every 

 province of the Kingdom. 



Of these State forests 97 per cent are regular timber forest, mostly pine and spruce, where 

 the final crop is intended to furnish saw timber, and every particular parcel is supposed to be 

 stocked with trees of nearly the same age. Only one-half of 1 per cent is managed as " Plenter- 

 wald" with the method of selection where trees of all sizes and age mingle together on the same 

 parcel and the logging merely involves the selection of suitable sizes. One-half of 1 per cent is 

 standard coppice, where the bulk of the trees, commonly hard woods, are cut off while still small, 

 15 to 30 years old, while a small portion is left over to grow into larger sizes; and 1.7 per cent is 

 managed as coppice, largely oak coppice for tanbark, where the trees (only the sprouting hard 

 woods) are cut down every ten to twenty-five years, the wood being utilized chiefly as poles and 

 fuel. Of the timber forests, 62 per cent is stocked with pine, almost entirely Scotch pine ( Pinus 

 sylvestris), furnishing hard pine similar to our red or Norway pine, 16 per cent is beech, 12 per cent 

 spruce, and nearly 6 per cent oak forest. Thus about 75 per cent of all Prussian State forests are 

 coniferous woods and only about 25 per cent stocked with hard woods, principally oak and beech. 



In general the trees of the timber forests are cut at an age of about 100 years (a 100-year 

 rotation). At present 13 per cent of the area is stocked with trees over 100 years old; 13 per 

 cent, 81 to 100 years old; 14 per cent, 61 to 80 years old; 18 per cent, 41 to 60 years old; 1!) per 

 cent, 21 to 40 years old; 19 per cent, 1 to 20 years old, and about 4 per cent are cut clean (recent 

 fellings) to be reforested at once. 



SAXONY. 



If Prussia may be regarded the best example of the success of rational forestry in a large 

 country, and Wurttemberg can be cited as proving the great value of a very conservative, almost 

 paternal, attitude of the State with regard to its forests, surely Saxony deserves the credit of 

 leading all other countries in the intensity of its forest management. 



