State Forest Administration. 151 
Before 1849 the forest properties which the Crown or 
State owned in the various territories were not managed 
as a unit or in any uniform manner, but a number of 
separate provincial or territorial forest administrations 
which were often connected with mining administrations 
had existed, and these under the influence of the edu- 
cated foresters issuing from the newly established forest 
school had been much improved. Nevertheless the Cam- 
eralists, as in Germany, were at the head of affairs and 
kept the technical development back until after the revo- 
lution of 1848 when the accession of Franz Joseph I 
brought many reforms and changes in methods of ad- 
ministration. 
The Ministry of Soilculture and Mining was created 
in that year and, as a branch of it, a forest department, 
separated from the department of the Chase, to the 
head of which was called a forester, Rudolf Feist- 
mantel, who elaborated an organization. But before 
much had been accomplished the Ministry and its forest 
department were abolished (1853) and the forest do- 
main again transferred to the Ministry of Finance. 
Feistmantel returned in 1856 as Chief of the forest 
division in that Ministry, and his organization of the 
forest property of the State into forest districts under 
forest managers and into provincial “forest directions” 
was perfected. 
Matters, however, did not thrive and, only when public 
attention and indignation had been aroused by a policy 
of selling State property, a change of attitude took place 
in 1872 which led to the present organization. This 
places the State forest administration in the Department 
of Agriculture, with an “Oberlandforstmeister” and two 
