AMERICAN FORESTRY 



VOL. 28 



APRIL, 1922 



NO. 340 



A SEVEN HUNDRED YEAR LOGGING COMPANY 



By Arthur Newton Pack 

 European Commissioner of the American Forestry Association 



TN the Black Forest of Germany is located the oldest 

 * privately owned and operated forest in the world. 

 Seven hundred years ago this area formed part of the 

 large estates of one of the Counts of Eberstein, con- 

 cerning which gentleman nothing more descriptive can be 

 said than that he was a typical and inveterate crusader. 

 Time after time he rallied his retainers about the an- 

 cestral banner to set out for Palestine, and as often re- 

 turned home with only a ragged remnant of his band. 

 Each expedition left him poorer, and finally to meet the 

 cost of a last efTort. he mortgaged to a group of thrifty 



I-IR AND SPRUCE IN THE BLACK FOREST 



This identical area has been logged over for seven hundred years 

 without decreasing the total volume of the stand. 



woodsmen the best portion of his forest domain. His- 

 tory relates that the poor Count was finally killed by the 

 Turks, and as he left no heir his property fell to the 

 'ate. The ruler of F^aden subsequently tried his best to 

 ireak that mortgage lien title of the woodsmen, but his 

 efforts were of no avail, and the forest remains to this 

 flay in their successors. 



These men who supplied the inoney for the Count to 

 spend were known as rafters, because they put together 

 great rafts of the largest fir timbers and floated them 

 down the Murg, the Neckar and the Rhine, to sell in 



Holland, where the requirements of ship building brought 

 good prices. This was centuries before the first idea of 

 forest conservation had occurred to anybody, but as 

 there was no market for anything but the largest trees, 

 which were also accessible to the streams, the forest was 

 not ruined. So grew up one of the world's earliest 

 corporations and without doubt the first commerciallv 

 productive private forest which has had an uninterrupted 

 producing record up to the present day. The ownership 

 has remained in the hands of the descendants of those 

 rafters, most of whom have become wealthy families and 

 now control not only that identical forest, but as individ- 

 uals and members of other companies own and operate 

 some of the finest saw mills, paper mills and other wood- 



\ GIANT SILVER FIR 



The Chief Forester makes cuttings to encourage the growth of 

 very large timbers such as this, for the large trees are here 

 most in demand. 



