150 Austria-Hungary. 
conditions would most likely be secured; but since 
here the property was not as in Bohemia in large estates 
but in small farmers’ hands, the result was disastrous; 
as we shall see later, it merely led to increased devasta- 
tion. 
The same result followed the increase of private peas- 
ant ownership which came with the abolishment of 
serfdom in 1781. In 1782 an ordinance full of wise 
prescriptions against wasteful practice intended for the 
Northwest territory sought to check the improvident 
forest destruction. 
A further wholesome influence on private forest man- 
agement was exercised by the tax assessment reform in 
1788, when not only a more reasonable assessment but 
for the first time a difference was made in taxation of 
managed as opposed to unmanaged woods and the epoch- 
making fertile idea of the normal forest was announced 
(see p. 108). At the same time the hunting privileges 
and other burdens, hampering forest properties, were 
abolished and measures for the extinguishment of the 
Tights of user enacted. 
3. State Forest Administration. 
The State domain in the first half of the 19th century 
had been reduced by sales from nearly 10 million acres 
to 4.5 million acres, and to a little over 3 million acres 
in 1855. In that year about one-half of this property 
was handed over to the National Bank to secure the 
State’s indebtedness of $30,000,000, and between 1860 
and 1870 large sales reduced the domain to its present 
size, when (in 1872) a new policy and the present organ- 
ization was instituted. 
