300 ECONOMICS OF FORESTRY. 



sively, insure the renewal with valuable species, 

 although it appears that the spruce is gaining over 

 the pine. Replanting has been begun even by 

 private forest owners ; in some cases on large 

 areas. Towns and country districts and parishes 

 own extensive forest tracts. The parish of Orsa 

 is an example of several in similar condition, real- 

 izing a fund of 1^2,500,000 from its forest lands, 

 which does away with the need of taxes. These 

 areas are under the management of a local com- 

 mittee, with the governor of the province as chair- 

 man, a crude selection system only being practised. 



The country which has attracted the greatest 

 interest in all matters pertaining to forestry, be- 

 cause the science of forestry is there most thor- 

 oughly developed and applied, is Germany. 



It may, therefore, be of interest not only to 

 describe the forest poHcies of Germany more 

 fully, but briefly to trace their historical develop- 

 ment. 



Although as early as Charlemagne's time a con- 

 ception of the value of a forest as a piece of prop- 

 erty was well recognized by that monarch himself, 

 and crude prescriptions as to the proper use of 

 the same are extant, a general, really well-ordered 

 system of forest management hardly existed until 

 the beginning of the eighteenth century. Spo- 

 radically, to be sure, systematic care and regular 

 methods of reproduction were employed even in 

 the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 



