154 Austria-Hungary. 
while at first much complaint against the enforcement of 
the regulations was heard, owners now ask constantly for 
its extension. 
The details of the duties devolving upon this organ- 
ization are found in a series of laws, applicable to differ- 
ent parts of the empire, which are based upon the recog- 
nition of protection forests, in which sanctioned working 
plans regulate the management. Forcible reforestation 
and employment of competent foresters in these are obli- 
gatory. Altogether about 60% of the Austrian forest 
area is managed under working plans. 
As a result of a translation from the French of De- 
montzey’s great work on the reboisement of mountains, 
by v. Seckendorff in 1880, and a subsequent report by 
the same author in 1883, a reboisement law, similar to 
that of the French was enacted in 1884, for the regula- 
tion of torrential streams under annual subventions of 
$100,000 by the State. At the same time for the regu- 
lation of the lower rivers an appropriation of $1,350,000 
was made, of which $400,000 was to be used for refor- 
estation work. 
This work as well as the reforestation of the Karst 
under the laws of 1881, 1883, 1885, is carried on by the 
forest protective service. 
On the whole the forest policy of Austria tends toward 
harmony with forest owners and liberation of private 
property. By reduction of railroad freights, which are 
under government management, by abolition of export 
duties, by reasonable tax assessments, etc., the wood 
export trade (now exceeding 20 million dollars) is fav- 
ored; by the extinction of rights of user under liberal 
laws improvement in forest management is made possi- 
