First Plantings. 37 
forest may grow up to wood again,” .and in other parts 
where mining interests made a special demand for props 
or charcoal the regulation of forest use was begun early. 
The difficulties of transportation in the absence of 
roads rendered local supply of more importance than at 
present and this accounts for the early measures to secure 
more economical use while distant woods were still 
plentiful but unavailable. 
While in the 12th and 13th centuries a merely restric- 
tive and regulative, or else a let-alone policy, “allowing 
the wood to grow up,” prevailed, we find in the 14th cen- 
tury the first beginnings of an attempt at forest exten- 
sion. 
In 1309 Henry VII ordered the reforestation of a 
certain stripped area by sowing. Of the execution of 
this order we have no record, but the first actually 
executed plantation on record is that by the city 
of Nuremberg in 1368 where several hundred acres of 
burned area were sowed with pine, spruce and fir; and 
there is also a record that in 1449 this crop was har- 
vested. In 1420 the city of Frankfort on the Main fol- 
lowed this example, relying on the Nuremberg seed 
dealer, whose correspondence is extant and who was in- 
vited to go to Frankfort, to give the necessary advice. 
He sowed densely in order to secure clear boles but ex- 
pressed the opinion that the plants could not be trans- 
planted and also relied on the phases of the moon for his 
operations. 
The planting of hardwood seems to have been begun 
much later; the first reference to it coming from the 
cloister and city of Seligenstadt which agreed in 1491 to 
reforest annually 20 to 30 acres with oak. 
