Forest Treatment. 35 



the royal right of the ban and merely for the avowed 

 purpose of protecting the chase. 



Eeal forest management, however, did not exist, 

 the forestarU mentioned in these early times being noth- 

 ing but policemen guarding the rights of the kings or 

 other owners of hunting rights. The conception that 

 wood on the stump was of the same nature as other prop- 

 erty and its removal theft had not yet become estab- 

 lished : "quia non res possessa sed de ligno agitur" (wood 

 not being 'a possessed thing), a conception which still 

 pervades the laws of modern times. 



The necessity of clearing farm lands for the growing 

 population continued even in the western more densely 

 populated sections into the 13th and 13th centuries. 

 The cloisters were especially active in colonizing and 

 making farm land with the use of axe and fire, such 

 cloisters being often founded as mere land speculations. 

 Squatters, as with us, were a frequent class of colonists, 

 and in eastern Prussia continued even into the 17th and 

 18th centuries to appropriate forest land without regard 

 to property rights. 



The disturbed ownership conditions, which we have 

 traced, led also often to wasteful slashing, especially in 

 the western territory, while colonization among the Slavs 

 of the east led to similar results. In the 13th century, 

 however, appear here and there the first signs of greater 

 necessity for regulating and restricting forest use in the 

 Mark forest and for improvement in forest conditions 

 with the purpose of insuring wood supplies. 



In the 13th century, division of the Mark forest begins 

 for the alleged reason that individual ownership would 

 lead to better management and less devastation. In the 



