Experiment Stations. 137 
sisted upon the 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 until 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 modern times se- 
cured (1872). 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 Societat 
