74 Oermany. 



about this time, something like the logging bosses in 

 the United States (Holzmeister) who were responsible 

 for the execution of the logging job. The organiza- 

 tion of wood-choppers went so far that in 1718 we find 

 in the Harz mountains mention of an Accident Insur- 

 ance and Mutual Charity Association among them. 



The sale of wood was at first carried on in the house ; 

 later it became customary to indicate in the forest the 

 trees to be cut or the area from which they should be 

 cut by the purchaser and finally they were felled by the 

 employes of the owner. For a long time, persisting 

 into the 18th century the sale was by area, and this 

 method developed the necessity of surveying; at the 

 same time, however, sales by the tree and by wood meas- 

 ure occurred, but only in the 18th century did the 

 present method of selling wood by measure after felling 

 come into existence. In Prussia the buyer had to take 

 the risk of felling, and pay, even if the tree proved 

 to be rotten, or broke in the felling. The forest owner 

 seems to have had the whip hand in determining the 

 price one-sidedly, revising, i. e., increasing the toll in 

 longer or shorter intervals. But in 1713 we find men- 

 tion of wood-auctions, or at least similar methods of 

 getting the best prices. Finally, special market days 

 for making sales and for designating of wood were in- 

 stituted ; on these days also all offenses against the forest 

 laws were adjudged. 



The exercise of the Forsthoheit (princely supervision) 

 originating in the ban forests and favored by the mer- 

 cantilistic and absolutist ideas of the 17th and 18th 

 centuries, gradually grew until the end of the 18th 

 century to such an extent that the forest owners them- 



