34 Germany. 



without entail, and mostly encumbered with rights of 

 user; allodial possessions (held independent of rent or 

 service) ; municipal possessions owned by city corpora- 

 tions; communal properties, the remnants of the Mark; 

 and farmers' woodlots, resulting from partitions of the 

 Mark. 



All these changes from the origiaal communal prop- 

 erty conditions did not, of course, take place without 

 friction, the. opposition often taking shape in peasants' 

 revolts; hundreds of thousands of these being killed in 

 their attempts to preserve their commons, forests and 

 waters free to all, to re-establish their liberty to hunt, 

 fish and cut wood, and to abolish tithes, serfdom and 

 duties. 



2. Forest Treatment. 



As stated, the German tribes which settled the coun- 

 try were herders and hunters, who developed into farm- 

 ers, while the country was being settled. At first 

 therefore, as far as the forest did not need to give way to 

 farm lands, its main use was in the exercise of the chase 

 and for pasture, and especially for the raising and fat- 

 tening of hogs; the number of hogs which could be 

 driven into a forest serving as an expression of the size 

 of such a forest, and the oak and beech furnishing the 

 mast were considered the preferable species. It is nat- 

 ural, therefore, that, wood being plentiful and the com- 

 mon property of all, the first regulation of forest use 

 had reference to these, now minor benefits of forest 

 property, as for instance the prohibition of cutting mast 

 trees, which was enforced in early times. The first ex- 

 tensive regulation of forest use came from the exercise of 



