Variety of Forest Control. 161 



in spite of attempts at reform; the "Karst" problem 

 remained unsolved; and, when Austria secured Dal- 

 matia, in 1897, that country too was found in the same 

 deplorable condition, the forest area, there in the 

 hands of the peasants, having suffered by pasture 

 and indiscriminate cutting. 



It was the work of Maria Theresa to reform the 

 administration of the various branches of govern- 

 ment, and wholesome legislation was also extended 

 to the forest branch by her forest ordinance of 1754, 

 which remained in force until 1852. It relieved the 

 private owners, who held most of the forest area, 

 from the restrictions hitherto imposed, except in the 

 frontier forests. These, for strategic reasons, were 

 to be managed according to special working plans 

 prepared by the "patriotic economic society." The 

 management of communal forests also was specially 

 regulated. Otherwise the ordinance merely recom- 

 mended in general terms orderly system and the 

 stopping of abuses. 



In 1771, another forest ordinance proposed to ex- 

 tend the same policy of private unrestricted owner- 

 ship to the Karst forests, with the idea that thereby 

 better conditions would most likely be secured; but, 

 since here the property was not as in Bohemia in 

 large estates but in small farmers' hands, the result 

 was disastrous, as we shall see later: it merely led to 

 increased devastation. 



The same result followed the increase of private 

 peasant ownership which came with the abolishment 

 of serfdom in 1781. In 1782, an ordinance full of wise 

 prescriptions against wasteful practice intended for 



