Experiment Stations. 137 



sisted upon tlie necessity of exact investigation to form 

 a basis of improved forest management and especially 

 of forest statics, and although in 1848 Carl Heyer 

 elaborated the first instruction for such investigations 

 which he expected to carry on with the aid of practition- 

 ers, the apathy of the latter and the troublesome times 

 prior to 1850 retarded this powerful means of advancing 

 forestry. During the decade from 1860 to 1870, how- 

 ever, the movement for the formation of experiment sta- 

 tions took shape, the first set being instituted in Saxony, 

 1862, by establishing nine stations for the purpose of 

 securing forest meteorological data, the next in Prussia ■ 

 in 1865 to solve the problems of the removal of litter, 

 and in Bavaria (1866), also for the study of forest 

 meteorology (Ebermayer),and the problem of thinnings. 

 But not untU Baur 1868, had pointed out more elab- 

 orately the necessity of systematic investigations and a 

 plan for such had been elaborated by a committee insti- 

 tuted by the German Forestry Association was a system 

 of experimentation as organized in modem times se- 

 cured (1873). The various states established inde- 

 pendently such experiment stations, but at the same 

 time a voluntary association of these stations was formed 

 for the purpose of co-ordinating and planning the work 

 to be done. 



Forestry associations instituted merely for the pur- 

 pose of propaganda, were apparently not organized. 

 The first association of professional foresters appears to 

 have been formed as the result of Bechstein's concep- 

 tion, who proposed in connection with his school (1795 

 at Gotha, 1800 at Dreissigacker) the formation of an 

 academy of noted foresters. As the result the Sodetdt 



