134 Germany. 



advocates of state forest, declaring anyone who opposed 

 ^them fit for the lunatic asylum. 



Division of opinions existed also regarding the super- 

 vision by the state of private and communal forests. The 

 political economists were inclined to reduce, the for- 

 esters to increase supervision, excepting again Pfeil in 

 his earlier writings ; he modified his views later by recog- 

 nizing supervision as a necessary evil. Cotta, who was 

 inclined to favor free use of forest property sought to 

 meet the objections to such free use by increasing the 

 state property. The main incentive urged by the earlier 

 advocates of state supervision was the fear of a tim- 

 ber famine. This argument vanished, however, with 

 the development of railroads and was then supplanted 

 by the argument of the protective functions of the for- 

 est, a classification into supply forests and pro- 

 tective forests suggesting differences of treatment. 

 Nevertheless the belief that absolute freedom of prop- 

 erty rights in forest is not in harmony with good politi- 

 cal economy a belief correct because of the long time 

 element involved still largely prevails. The difficulty, 

 however, of supervising private ownership and the ad- 

 vantages of state ownership find definite expression in 

 the policy which Prussia especially is now following, in 

 acquiring gradually the mismanaged private woodlands 

 and impoverished farm areas for reforestation, making 

 annual appropriations to this end. Many other states 

 also are beginning to see the propriety of this movement. 

 On the whole the systematic study of the economics 

 of forestry has been rather neglected by foresters, al- 

 though the subject was discussed by early writers, Meyer, 

 Laurop, Pfeil, and in modem times by R. Weber, Lehr 

 and Schwappach ("Forstpolitik," 1894). 



