68 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



9 THE BLACK FOREST 



I dare say that no one who has ever visited the region of the 

 Black Forest fails to look back upon that visit as one of the mile- 

 stones upon life's journey. A semimountainous region extending 

 from the Neckar at Heidelberg to the Swiss border and from 

 the valley of the Rhine across Baden and most of Wurttem- 

 berg, for the most part covered with forests of spruce or fir and 

 with small farms and villages in the valleys, with its fine roads 

 reaching to every portion of the forest, presents a picture of beauty 

 that does not fade quickly from the mind. 



In the days of the primeval Black Forest the conditions were 

 somewhat like those prevailing on the Pacific coast 20 years ago, as 

 regards lumbering operations. The timber most accessible was cut 

 first. The operations were reckless, timber rights were sold cheaply 

 or were given away. The logging camps were established where 

 there was a little tillable soil, and from such beginnings have come 

 the numerous little villages of the Black Forest. The men worked 

 in the woods, and during periods when woods work was slack they 

 cultivated their little tracts of ground, built roads, wove baskets 

 and carved wood. The government received, on the average, only 

 6 cents a log in those days. No working plans existed, as all the 

 timber was mature; but with the development of railroads and new 

 markets and the enlargement of the market from a local one to a 

 far-reaching one, the value of the Black Forest rose by leaps and 

 bounds in spite of the rapid cutting away of the primeval forest. 



The Black Forest covers 500,000 acres in Baden and 600,000 acres 

 in Wurttemberg. Much of it is now private (such as the enormous 

 holdings of the princes of Fiirstenberg), communal, state and stock 

 companies. 



The early method of marketing the timber was to raft the logs 

 down the streams to Holland or intermediate markets, but prior 

 to 1718 the existence of many little principalities through which the 

 logs must pass to a market made it expensive or unremunerative 

 in spite of the low cost of the stumpage. After 171 8, by means of 

 a treaty between the various small states, the rafting of logs 

 became possible upon a large scale. 



No good records exist of the forest conditions of the Black Forest 

 prior to 1758, when the region is said to have contained more than 

 80,000 feet of timber an acre, and many trees contained as high 

 as 28,000 board feet each. 



The companies rafting logs to Holland in some cases acquired 



