>/ 



120 Germany. 



radically,, in Bavaria, except as to smaller owners. The 

 result was, to a large extent, the increase of exploitation 

 and forest devastation, creating wastes and setting shift- 

 ing sand and sanddunes in motion. The reaction which 

 set in resulted in Prussia not in renewal of restrictive 

 measures, but in the enactment of promotive ones. The 

 law of 1875 sought improvement by encouraging small 

 owners to unite their properties under one management ; 

 but the expectations which were founded on this 

 ameliorative policy seem so far not to have been realized. 

 A new relation, however, of a conservative character 

 arose by the establishment of the entail, that is a eon- 

 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, diminish- 

 ing or mismanaging their property. As a result of this 

 arrangement, many of the larger private forest proper- 

 ties are forced to a conservative management, not as a 

 direct influence of the law, but as a matter of agreement. 

 The condition of the relation of the state to private and 

 communal forest property at present prevailing is ex- 

 pressed in the following statement of divisions by prop- 

 erty classes of forest areas of Germany, showing 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% 



