102 Germany. 



A reaction from the mdiscriminate application of the 

 shelterwood method to the hardwoods and of the clearing 

 method to the pine set in during the last quarter of the 

 19th century under the lead of Burkhardt and Gayer. 

 These advocated return to mixed forest and to natural 

 regeneration with long periods, approaching a selection 

 forest. Yet even to this day, the principles of silvicul- 

 tural treatment under the many different conditions re- 

 main unsettled. On the whole, however, the financial 

 question having been assiduously brought forward, the 

 clearing system has made much progress and the selec- 

 tion system has nearly vanished, being replaced by the 

 group method and the shelterwood system. 



A number of special forms of silvicultural manage- 

 ment applicable under special conditions have been 

 locally developed, without, however, gaining much 

 ground and being mainly of historical value. Among 

 these may be mentioned Seebach's Modified Beech For- 

 est, which consists in first securing a regeneration, 

 merely to form a soil cover, and in leaving enough of the 

 old trees on the ground to close up in thirty or forty 

 years. By this treatment the large accretion due to 

 open position is secured without endangering the soil. 

 Similarly the Composition or Two-aged High forest, was 

 applied to the management of oak forest in mixture with 

 beech. In a few localities also, on limited areas, a com- 

 bination of forest and farming (Waldfeldhau) has been 

 continued and elaborated, besides the more general use 

 of coppice and coppice with standards. 



According to the statistics for 1900 the following dis- 

 tribution of the acreage under different silvicultural 

 methods prevailed throughout the empire: 



