REPORT OF THE STATE BOTANIST I913 Jl 



as coppice under standards, the coppice being treated in rotations 

 of 32 years, and consisting of hornbeam, basswood, birch, oak and 

 beech. The white oaks and beech were the standards for the former 

 coppice and there is still left an enormous number of these prime 

 white oaks, which are being gradually cut. 



The Gramschatz administration receives for its timber, prices 

 ranging from $15 to $100 a cubic meter, the latter price for the 

 best veneer oak. The gross receipts obtained at the auctions of 

 timber aggregate over $60,000 a year for this range. 



The coppice under standards system began in i8c6, when the 

 archbishop was deprived of his possessions, which were then made 

 over to the " Reichsverweser." In 1814 the lands were turned over 

 to the kingdom of Bavaria, which continued to cut down the coppice 

 woods and to replace them by a high forest. The pole woods of 

 beech, now over 90 years old, are particularly fine, excelling in 

 straight trunks and rapid growth. The heavy mast years for oak 

 which occurred in 1897 and in 1900 were taken advantage of for the 

 planting of large areas to oak. There is probably nowhere in 

 Germany, unless it be in the Spassart region famous for its oaks, 

 a better second growth of oak than in the eastern part of the 

 Gramschatz forest. The oak timber of the Gramschatz forests is 

 but little inferior in quality to that of the more famed Spessarts, 

 where several giants of the primeval forest still exist (plate 17). 



The last working plan advanced has been a return to the coppice 

 system. As a matter of fact, however, the coppice system here has 

 been very much overdone and it is noteworthy that the management 

 has agreed to reproduce hornbeam, having complained so much of 

 the plague of mice, which has caused wholesale destruction of the 

 hornbeam and also of basswood and beech, while oak remains intact. 

 The resultant usurpation of the weeds and grasses make is necessary 

 to obtain regeneration from self-sown seeds of hornbeam or beech 

 and to adopt the planting of spruce. The spruce seems to do 

 particularly well. A plantation of spruce 55 years old, planted 

 originally in alteration with elm, is as fine a stand of spruce as 

 obtains anywhere in Germany. The beech mast of 1909 has been 

 spoiled by a plague of black snails which are said to feed at night, 

 defoliating the beech seedlings absolutely. 



Such portions of the range as are not allotted to oak are regener- 

 ated in beech and hornbeam, which are meant to make up two-thirds 

 of the growing stock. The remainder consists of pine and spruce, 

 planted, or, in the case of pine, raised from seed. In addition to 

 these, larch is being planted on a larger scale than formerly. 



