Government Supervision. 53 



practices of the lower officials had become the most 

 hated and distasteful part of the administration. 



The argument of the protective influence of forest 

 cover did not enter into this legislation; this argu- 

 ment belongs to the 19th century. 



Yet reboisement of torrents had already in 1788, 

 been recognized as a proper public measure in German 

 Austria, although active work in that direction was 

 not begun until nearly a century later. 



The rise of prices during the 17th and 18th cen- 

 turies had been very considerable, doubling, trebling 

 and even quadrupling in the first half of the 18th 

 century. The mercantilistic doctrines of the time 

 led, therefore, to attempts to keep prices low by pre- 

 scribing rates for wood and in general by restricting 

 and regulating wood commerce. 



This was done especially by interdicting sale to 

 outsiders, forbidding export from the small territory 

 of the particular prince; or, at least, giving preference 

 to the inhabitants of the territory as purchasers and 

 at cheaper rates. 



Owing to the small size of the very many princi- 

 palities, the free development of trade was consider- 

 ably hampered by these regulations. Sometimes also 

 wood imports were prohibited, as for instance, in 

 Wurttemberg, when, in 1740, widespread windfalls 

 had occurred which had to be worked up and threat- 

 ened to overstock the market. 



Wood depots under government control were estab- 

 lished in large cities, and the amount of wood to be 

 used per capita prescribed, as in Koenigsberg (1702). 



In Berlin, in 1766, a monopoly of the fuel wood 



