Forestry Literature. 89 



of affairs, or else professors at universities, where 

 they included forestry as one of the branches of 

 political economy. 



The credit of the first really systematic presenta- 

 tion of forestry principles and rules, as developed at 

 the time, belongs to Wilhelm Gottfried von Moser, a 

 pupil of von Langen, who served in various princi- 

 palities, and finally with the Prince of Taxis. In his 

 Principles of Forest Economy, published in 1757, 

 which for the first time brought out the economic 

 importance of the subject, he discusses in two volumes 

 divided into nine chapters the different branches of 

 forestry. 



A mining engineer, /. A. Cramer, came next with a 

 very notable book, " Anleitung znm Forstwesen" 

 (1766), which, although not as comprehensive as 

 Moser's, treats the subject of silviculture very well. 



Equal in arrogance and opinionated self-satisfaction 

 to any of the empiricists with whom he frequently 

 crossed swords, was the Brunswick councillor, von 

 Brocke, who, as an amateur, practising forestry on 

 his own estate, developed the characteristic trait of 

 the empiricists, namely, a profound belief in his own 

 infallibility. He produced, besides many polemic 

 writings, in which he charged the whole class of 

 foresters with ignorance, laziness and dishonesty, a 

 magnum opus in four volumes, entitled "True bases 

 of the physical and experimental general science of 

 forestry" which is an olla podrida of small value. 



Less original, but more fair and well informed, a 

 typical representative of the cameralists, was /. F. 

 Stahl, finally head of the forest administration of 



