HISTORIC SKETCH 9 



tion. the development socially and industrially, with highway, 

 railway and canal building, the price of wood advanced, and 'even 

 the remote woods could be made valuable. It no longer paid to 

 wait for natural reproduction in badly treated, half-wild woods. 

 Clear Cut and planting became the rule ; the old woods roads, often 

 half slide, half road, were abolished, well planned and well located 

 roads were built and every lot was made accessible to good wagon 

 and sleigh haul. These developments cost vast sums of money, and 

 for years the net income was low accordingly, but now r they are 

 largely finished, and the income is going up rapidly and steadily in 

 the State Forests of every State of the German Empire. 



Modern Forest Regulation as taught in the text books of today 

 is a development of the last 150 years. As early as 1740 Jacobi 

 taught Area Regulation with reduced areas ; Frederick the Great 

 ordered the division of the Pine woods of Prussia into Fixed Yearly 

 Cuts and about the same time Beckman taught Volume Regulation. 

 In 1795 the elder Plartig published his work on Volume Regulation, 

 and in 1819 introduced this method officially in the Prussian State 

 Forests. In 1804 Cotta published his Area Allotment and laid the 

 foundation to the Limited Allotment, or the "Judeich Method" (of 

 Schlich) which, with slight variations, is today the official Method 

 of the State Forests of nearly all German States. But to Cotta the 

 Working Plan was more than merely a Regulation of the Cut in 

 Volume or Area ; he insisted that a proper division of the forest 

 into Lots and into independent parts (Cutting Series) and then 

 also a proper road building, the faithful following of the Working 

 Plan and a regular revision of this Plan to adapt it to the ever 

 changing conditions of the forest, were of far more importance than 

 the mere estimate or calculation of the volume of timber which 

 might be taken yearly from a forest in a particular period. 



All through the past century numerous authors added to the 

 literature of Regulation, and suggested various methods of Regulat- 

 ing the Cut. Stress was usually laid on the explanation of the 

 perfectly regulated forest or "normal forest" as a model, and also 

 on the numerous methods of Regulating the Cut, and this peculiar 

 emphasis went so far that even at the present time there is a feeling 

 abroad that the various theories and formulas which have been 

 invented (for the most part not used) of Regulating the Cut of 



