250 FORESTRY IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 



aries and the people, and so many civil engineers as are necessary for surveys, 

 for the selection of trees to be felled, and other like services. 



To the local branches of the central government is attached a duly quali- 

 fied "forest commissary" to guard against neglect or infractions of the forest 

 laws and ordinances by communes and private owners. 



4. The revenues derived from the state forests are variable, depending 

 upon position as to market, accessibility, cost of maintenance, protection, and 

 other obvious circumstances. Near Vienna they may be estimated at 15 to 

 25 florins per hectare; on the contrary, in the Alps there are large tracts^ of 

 forests where the cost of transportation renders the timber as such valueless, 

 and yet, covering the mountain sources of the great rivers, repay a hundred- 

 fold the expenses of their protection for reasons before given. The forests of 

 Gorizia yield about 15 and Styria, Carinthia, and the Tyrol about 5 florins 

 per annum net income per hectare. 



Minute statistics of expense and income generally cannot be given, but are 

 easily estimated in favorable cases. For instance, take the deciduous forests 

 (mainly beech and oak) in the province of Gorizia, which have easy access to 

 and are supplied with water power to saw and shape for the market. A hectare 

 there will produce in a century 450 cubic meters of solid wood, i. e., 4.5 

 meters per annum ; two-thirds of this is' fuel and one-third lumber or timber, 

 the value being 30 florins. 



The aggregate of expenses, viz : administration, protection, taxes, felling, 

 preparing for the market, and transportation, is to be calculated on the average 

 at 50 per centum; the net income per hectare, therefore, is 15 florins. 



5. The planting, or rather the renewal, of deciduous forests in positions 

 where there can be little or no profit is simply left to nature, where fallen 

 and decayed trees are replaced by natural seeding, or from shoots springing 

 from stumps and roots which are sheltered and protected from sun and storm 

 by old growth. 



Experience has long since demonstrated that under the physical and 

 climatic condition of this part of the empire, after a forest has been felled, 

 seeding is not a reliable mode of renewing it except here and there in case of 

 the oak, chestnut and the beech ; and there is even then more dependence ' 

 placed upon protecting shoots from old roots than from planting acorns or 

 nuts. When forests of hardwoods are to be planted where other species had 

 before stood, seeding is now generally abandoned and young plants from 

 nurseries, one, two, or three years old, are transplanted. 



The age of the young trees selected depends upon the character of their 

 new habitat in respect to moisture, exposure to the sun, and to the prevailing 

 strong winds, depths of soil, &c. The planting is in shallow trenches two 

 to three meters apart, and the plants are placed, according to species, at in- 

 tervals of one to one and a half meters. Thus a hectare receives from 5,000 

 to 10,000 plants, according to the species. The cost varies exceedingly, 

 being as low as 35 florins in very favorable positions, and as high as 100 

 florins in others. Nurseries differ in no respect from those in the United 



