GERMAN* FOREST MANAGEMENT SURVEY. -_>39 



department (as in Havana) or to the department of agriculture and forestry (as in Prussia), with 

 one director and council directly in charge under the supervision of the minister or secretary. 

 The position of the director (Oberlandforstmeister) corresponds somewhat to that of our Com 

 missioner of the General Land Office, except that, an extensive technical knowledge being needed 

 in the position, the incumbent is promoted through all positions from the lower grades. Again, 

 each forest division is placed under a separate administrative body consisting of an administrator 

 (Oberforstmeisteij with a council of forest inspectors (Forstmeister), each of whom has supervision 

 of a number of the final units of administration, the forest districts (Oberfoersterei, Forstamt). 

 The district officer (Oberfoerster, Kevierfoerster, etc.), with a .lumber of assistants, rangers 

 (Foerster), and guards (Schutzbeamte), is then the manager and executive officer in the forest 

 itself, while the higher supervising and inspecting officials are located at the seats of government. 



SURVEY OF THE FOREST DISTRICT. 



The survey of each forest district is carried out to the utmost miuuthe. 



In Prussia the maps of the districts are made on thescaleof 1:5,000 in portfolio sheets, repre- 

 senting a careful survey by theodolite of the boundaries of the district, the permanent differences 

 of soil and occupancy (roads, waters, fields, meadows, moors, etc.), and the division of the district 

 into smaller units of management. This kind of map, of which only three copies are made, is 

 then, for purposes of use in daily routine, reduced to a scale of 1:25,000 on one sheet, and printed. 

 The first matter of interest that strikes us on these blank or base maps is the division lines by 

 which the district is divided into parcels or compartments. In the plain these lines divide the 

 district into regular oblong compartments (Jagen) of about 60 to 75 acres each, with sides of 100 

 and 200 yards, respectively, separated by openings or avenues which we may call " rides " (Gestell, 

 Schneisse), so that the whole makes the appearance very much like the map of an American city 

 regularly divided into blocks. The rides (from 8 to 40 rods wide) running east and west and north 

 and south are lettered, the former, broader ones (main avenues) with capital letters, the latter 

 (side avenues) with small letters, while the compartments are numbered. In the forest itself at 

 each corner a monument of wood or stone indicates the letters of the rides and numbers of the 

 compartments, rendering it easy to find one's way or direct any laborer to any place in the forest. 

 The rides are often used as roads and serve also the purpose of checking fires, etc. 



In the hill and mountain districts this regular division becomes impracticable and the lines of 

 compartments conform to the contour, while the opening of the avenues is restricted to those 

 which can be readily transformed into roads; roads, indeed, determining the division lines 

 wherever practicable. 



In hill or mountain districts topographic or contour maps become necessary, especially for the 

 purpose of rational road construction, a matter on which in modern times great stress is laid and 

 to which we shall refer later on more in detail. Such contour maps are sometimes executed in 

 papier-mache or gypsum models for readier reference. 



PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT. 



The fundamental principles upon which the German Government forests and most of the 

 communal and private forests are managed is briefly expressed in the idea that the forest growth 

 is to be treated as a crop to be reproduced as soon as harvested, involving continuity of crops. 

 To carry this principle into effect most advantageously the management must take care to husband 

 the natural forces and conditions upon which thrifty forest growth relies, which leads to the 

 second principle, that of highest efficiency of crops, or the two leading principles combined, to 

 produce the largest amounts of material (or revenue) in the shortest time without impairing the 

 condition and capacity for reproduction of the forest, perpetuating valuable forest growth wher- 

 ever this is the best crop or where soil conditions make a forest cover desirable. In government 

 forests in addition the financial principle prevails of treating the forest as a permanently invested 

 capital, from which only the interest is to be used, making the amount harvested or the revenue 

 derived to be as nearly alike from year to year or from period to period, and as nearly correspond- 

 ing to the annual accretion, as it is possible to make them. 



