174 Switzerland. 
from 9% (Basel and Genf) to over 39% (in the Jura) 
of the total land area of the different cantons, the aver- 
age being 20%, leaving out of consideration the area 
above timber limit (5,000 to 7,500 feet), and the waters 
and rocks below. This is less than in Germany and 
Austria, more than in France. But if unproductive 
soil, which represents over 28%, is excluded, the per- 
centage of forest area on productive soil would about 
equal Germany. 
Property rights developed at first similarly to those 
developed on German soil, except that, as we have seen, 
feudal conditions were not allowed to gain foothold to 
the same extent, and liberty from serfdom was secured 
earlier. At present, ownership is still largely communal : 
of the 2 million acres of forest nearly 67% are so owned, 
making this property of highest forest political impor- 
tance; private owners hold only 28.6% and the cantonal 
forests represent but 4.5%, the Bund as such owning 
none. It is also to be noted that communal property is 
constantly increasing by purchases from private hold- 
_ ings. 
No doubt in some parts the first beginnings of care for 
forest property and forest use date back even to Roman 
times. Charlemagne had his forest officials here as 
elsewhere, and the number of ban forests seems to have 
been especially great, some 400 “bannbriefe,” docu- 
ments establishing them, having been collected at Bern. 
The first forest ordinance regulating the use of a special 
forest area in Bern dates from 1304. But the first 
working plan seems to have been made for the city for- 
