56 Germany. 
with standards (1569, etc.), with an intentional hold- 
ing over of the valuable oak and ash for standards. 
Probably, however, large areas of unconsciously pro- 
duced composite forest exhibited sad pictures of branchy 
overwood with suppressed underwood of poor sprouts, in- 
jared by game and cattle—a scrubby growth, into which 
crept softwoods of birch and aspen. Attempts at prun- 
ing such scrub growths into shape on quite an extensive 
scale are on record. 
The recognition that more wood per acre could be 
secured by lengthening the rotation of the coppice, which 
seems to have been mostly twelve years or less, led to 
twenty and thirty year turns and finally to fifty, sixty 
and even eighty year rotations or so-called polewood 
management, (Brunswick, 1745), also called Hochwald 
(high forest). 
A full description and working plan for such a forest 
to be managed in eighty year rotation, the city forest 
of Mainz in the Odenwald and Spessart mountains, dates 
from 1773, and this polewood forest management became 
quite general after the middle of the 18th century, but 
in the last half of the 19th century was generally 
replaced by the true high forest management under 
nursetrees, the experiences with the natural reproduction 
of conifer forest having proved the advantages of this 
method. 
The primitive beginnings of this so-called Femelschlag 
method (Compartment selection or shelterwood method) 
are found in 1720 and 1730 in Hesse Darmstadt, 
where Oberforstmeister von Minnigerode prescribed 
regular fellings progressing from north to south, 
removing all material down to polewood size (in selec- 
