State Supervision. 129 



A new relation, however, of a conservative character 

 arose by the establishment of the entail, i.e., a con- 

 tract made by the head of the family with the govern- 

 ment under which the latter assumes the obligation 

 of forever preventing the heirs from disposing of, 

 diminishing, or mismanaging their property. As a 

 result of this arrangement, many of the larger private 

 forest properties are forced to a conservative manage- 

 ment, not as a direct influence of the law, but as a 

 matter of agreement. The condition of state super- 

 vision of private and communal forest property at 

 present prevailing is expressed in the following state- 

 ment of divisions by property classes of forest areas 

 of Germany, which shows that at least 63.9% are 

 under conservative management: 



Total Forest 34,769,794 acres. 



Crown forest 1.8% 



State forest 31.9% 



Corporation forest 16.1% 



Institute forest 1-5% 



Association forest 2.2% 



Private forest (10.4% entail) 46.5% 



Until the beginning of the present century, the pro- 

 tective function of the forest had played no role in the 

 arguments for state interference, but just about the 

 beginning of the century cries were heard from France 

 that, owing to the reckless devastation of the 

 Vosges and Jura Alps by cutting, by fires and over- 

 grazing, brooks had become torrents, and the valleys 

 were inundated and covered by the debris and silt of 



