Forest Administration. 115 
of a special bureau, with the assistance of the district 
manager. Upon the basis of the general working plan 
prepared by these commissions an annual plan is elab- 
orated by the district managers with consultation and 
approval of the provincial and central administration. 
These plans contain a detailed statement of all the work 
to be done through the year, the cost of each item and 
the receipts expected from each source. This annual 
working plan requires approval by the provincial ad- 
ministration, which is constituted as a deliberative coun- 
cil, consisting of a number of Forstmeister with an 
Oberforstmeister as presiding officer. The titles of these 
officers, to be sure, and the details of procedure vary 
somewhat in different states, but the system as a whole 
is more or less alike. 
The district manager or Oberférster, now often called 
Forstmeister, has grown in importance and freedom of 
position, although his district has grown smaller (mostly 
not over 25,000 acres), and, being one of the best edu- 
cated men in the country district, he usually holds the 
highest social position, although his emoluments are still 
small. He holds many offices of an honorary character, 
as for instance that of justice of the peace, and the posi- 
tion of states’ attorney or public prosecutor in all cases 
of infraction of the forest laws. These forest laws are 
still largely local, that is, State laws, although the crim- 
inal law of the empire has somewhat unified practice. 
Curiously enough wood on the stump is still not con- 
sidered property in the same sense as other things, so 
far as theft is concerned ; the stealing of growing timber 
is not even called theft, the word used in the laws being 
Frevel (tort), and like other infractions against forest 
