34 Germany. 



without entail, and mostly encumbered with rights of 

 user; allodial possessions (held independent of rent or 

 service) ; municipal possessions owned by city corpora- 

 tions; communal properties, the remnants of the Mark; 

 and farmers' woodlots, resulting from partitions of the 

 Mark. 



All these changes from the original communal prop- 

 erty conditions did not, of course, take place without 

 friction, the opposition often taking shape in peasants' 

 revolts; hundreds of thousands of these being killed in 

 their attempts to preserve their commons, forests and 

 waters free to all, to re-establish their liberty to hunt, 

 fish and cut wood, and to abolish tithes, serfdom and 

 duties. 



2. Forest Treatment. 



As stated, the German tribes which settled the coun- 

 try were herders and hunters, who developed into farm- 

 ers, while the country was being settled. At first 

 therefore, as far as the forest did not need to give way to 

 farm lands, its main use was in the exercise of the chase 

 and for pasture, and especially for the raising and fat- 

 tening of hogs; the number of hogs which could be 

 driven into a forest serving as an expression of the size 

 of such a forest, and the oak and beech furnishing th^ 

 mast were considered the preferable species. It is nat 

 ural, therefore, that, wood being plentiful and the comJ 

 mon property of all, the first regulation of forest us 

 had reference to these, now minor benefits of fores 

 property, as for instance the prohibition of cutting masij 

 trees, which was enforced in early times. The first ea 

 tensive regulation of forest use came from the exercise 



