State Supervision. 127 



units or parts of political or state machines, also inde- 

 pendence in the management of their property was 

 secured, and many of the old restrictions which had 

 circumscribed this right fell away. Curiously enough, 

 during the French domination under Napoleon, the 

 new masters, forgetting the spirit of the revolutionary 

 period, introduced the prescriptions of the old French 

 ordinance of 1669 which restricted the use of com- 

 munal property to the extent of excluding the 

 owners entirely from the managenmet of their pro- 

 perty, and placed it under government officers. After 

 the French withdrew, this method, of course, collapsed, 

 although it probably had an influence on the final 

 shaping of forest policies in these respects. Alto- 

 gether, there was such variety of historic development 

 in the different parts of Germany that it is not to be 

 wondered at that one finds a great variety of policies 

 still prevailing not only in different States but in 

 different localities of the same State. 



At the present time three different principles in the 

 relations of the state to the corporation forests may 

 be recognized, namely, entire freedom, excepting so 

 far as general police laws apply, which is the case 

 with most of the corporation forests in Prussia (law 

 of 1876) ; special supervision of the technical manage- 

 ment under approved officials with proper education, 

 which is the case in Saxony, most of Bavaria, the 

 Prussian provinces of Westphalia, Rhirieland and 

 Saxony, and in some of the smaller states; or lastly, 

 the absolute administration by the state, which pre- 

 vails in Baden, parts of Bavaria, provinces Hesse- 

 Nassau, and Hanover. The tendency, however, in 



