FORESTRY IN GERMANY. 1 23 



estate having been once acknowledged it followed easily enough that the 

 forest lands lying contiguous to the "clearing" might be included in the 

 possession. But this privilege of land owning was confined exclusively to 

 free men, and it gradually became a necessity that this class should possess a 

 fair number of broad acres. Therefore by this process of "squatting" and 

 preemption, the woods, which heretofore had been common property, as free 

 to all as water and air, came at last into the hands of the few — the leaders 

 and rulers of tribes and the heads of families. 



After the lapse of time it became customary for the rulers to declare 

 themselves the owners of immense tracts of forest, and to proclaim that the 

 domain thus designated was to be devoted to the purposes of the chase. 



Then officers were appointed to control the woods and to protect them 

 from destruction, not for the value of the timber, but simply to preserve them 

 for the chase. 



The earliest efforts toward managing and protecting the forests appear, 

 however, to have been imperfect and ineffective. So prodigally was the tim- 

 ber destroyed that in the twelfth century the woods in many parts of Ger- 

 many were devastated and uprooted. To check this evil stringent laws were 

 enacted, reaching so far as to impose the cruelest death penalties upon persons 

 who might wantonly burn the forests. 



Hans Carl von Carlowitz, in his " Sylvicultura CEconomica," 1713, 

 writes: "From the little information we have of the condition and quality 

 of woods it must be acknowledged that within the last few years more wood 

 has been consumed in the middle European countries than could grow in 

 several centuries. From this it is easy to see what the end must be. The 

 trees are destroyed, the forests that make a country prosperous are gone, the 

 mountains and hills are bare." 



In the next chapter he states: "It is an almost universal fact that every- 

 body prefers to possess fields and meadows rather than wood land, and is 

 therefore inclined to root up and destroy the latter as if it was only a weed 

 patch without any value to domestic economy." 



The scarcity of funds in the state exchequer first directed the attention 

 of the rulers in Thuringia to a more careful cultivation of the forests as a 

 means of replenishing it. 



Forest legislation in Erfurt began as far back as 1359. In the sixteenth 

 century forest bureaus were first established and laws on the subject of forestry 

 proclaiined by the respective sovereigns. For instance, the Saxon-Ernestine 

 laws of 1556, and later those at Eisenach, 1645; Coburg, 1653; Jena,^ 

 1674, &c. 



In the seventeenth century much attention began to be paid to the felling 

 of the forests, in which strict rules were to be observed and an exact calcula- 

 tion was often made as to what per cent, of territory in a duchy or princi- 

 pality might be felled in any one period. The planting of young trees was 

 also greatly encouraged. All this was but the beginning of the splendidly- 

 developed system of forest culture and forest preservation in Thuringia. 



