64 Germany. 



8. Methods of Regulating Forest Management. 



Organized forest management was slower to de- 

 velop than silvietiltiiral methods. The first attempts 

 to bring order into the progress of fellings took the form 

 of dividing the whole area into a certain number of fell- 

 ing areas (12, 16, 30, 30, etc.), several ordinances con- 

 taining prescriptions to that effect dating from the 

 middle of the 15th and 17th centuries. 



It is doubtful whether the numbers of these areas 

 indicate years of rotation, in which case they could only 

 have applied to coppice, or whether they indicate periods 

 of return in selection forest, although the historians seem 

 to jump to the former conclusion. The area division 

 practiced by v. Langen in the Harz mountains (1745), 

 who prescribed the division of larger districts into fifty to 

 sixty, of smaller districts into twenty to thirty feUing 

 areas, also leaves it doubtful, whether the areas corre- 

 sponded to an assumed rotation or to a period of return. 



At first the division was not into equal areas, for no 

 survey existed, and its object was simply to localize the 

 cutting and provide orderly progress. The subdivision 

 was made in the mountain country by following the 

 topography, valleys and ridges, while in the plain the 

 lines opened up for purposes of the chase (to set up 

 nets), called Schneisen or Gestelle (rides), bounding 

 square areas called Jagen, Qiiadrat, Stallung, were used 

 for the limitation of the felling areas. Most commonly, 

 however, largely due to absence of surveys, the ordered 

 division did not materialize, but existed only on paper. 



With more exact measuring of areas and with the con- 

 ception of rotation or longer periods of return, it was 

 recognized that the inequality of the sites or soil quality, 



