66 Germany. 



with standards (1569, etc.), with an intentional hold- 

 ing over of the valuable oak and ash for standards. 

 Probably, hovrever, large areas of unconsciously pro- 

 duced composite forest exhibited sad pictures of branchy 

 overwood with suppressed underwood of poor sprouts, in- 

 jured by game and cattle a scrubby growth, into which 

 crept softwoods of birch and aspen. Attempts at prun- 

 ing such scrub growths into shape on quite an extensive 

 scale are on record. 



The recognition that more wood per acre could be 

 secured by lengthening the rotation of the coppice, which 

 seems to have been mostly twelve years or less, led to 

 twenty and thirty year turns and finally to fifty, sixty 

 and even eighty year rotations or so-called polewood 

 management, (Brunswick, 1745), also called Hochwald 

 (high forest). 



A full description and working plan for such a forest 

 to be managed in eighty year rotation, the city forest 

 of Mainz in the Odenwald and Spessart mountains, dates 

 from 1773, and this polewood forest management became 

 quite general after the middle of the 18th century, but 

 in the last half of the 19th century was generally 

 replaced by the true high forest management under 

 nursetrees, the experiences with the natural reproduction 

 of conifer forest having proved the advantages of this 

 method. 



The primitive beginnings of this so-called Femelschlag 

 method (Compartment selection or shelterwood method) 

 are found in 1720 and 1730 in Hesse Darmstadt, 

 where Oberforstmeister von Minnigerode prescribed 

 regular fellings progressing from north to south, 

 removing all material down to polewood size (in selec- 



