FOREST POLICIES OF FOREIGN NATIONS. 303 



were gradually construed as exercised only by 

 permission, and the former owners were reduced 

 to holders of "servitudes," i.e. holders of certain 

 rights in the substance of the forest. The fact 

 that the feudal lords frequently became the ober- 

 markers, or burgomasters, of the mark community 

 lent color of right to these restrictions in the use 

 of the property, besides the assertion that the 

 needs of maintaining the chase required and en- 

 titled them to such control. 



It is interesting to note that through all the 

 changes of centuries, these so-called servitudes 

 have lasted until our own times, much changed, to 

 be sure, in character, and extended by new grants, 

 especially to churches, charitable institutions, cities, 

 villages, and colonists. Such rights, to satisfy 

 certain requirements from the substance of an 

 adjoining forest, were then usually attached to the 

 ownership of certain farms, and involved counter 

 service of some sort, usually in hauling wood or 

 doing other forestry work. 



Sometimes when the lordly owners of large 

 properties exercised only certain prerogatives to 

 show ownership, these, in the course of time, 

 lapsed into the character of servitudes, the forest 

 itself by occupation becoming the property of the 

 community. With changes in value and other 

 changes in economic conditions, these rights often 

 became disadvantageous and more and more cum- 

 bersome to either or both sides. 



