74 



Prussia. 



Prussia has twenty millions of acres of forests, ten millions of which are private, 

 and the remainder, with which we have more to do, state, commercial, and ecclesiastical. 



Of these the income is $14,000,000, and the expenses |7,500,000, leaving $6,500,000 

 clear. This will not show much, in fact not more than 65c. per acre, but there are other 

 returns of more than mere yearly revenue importance. When it is considered that this 

 result is arrived at without trenching on the capital or stock of timber in the forests, 

 which, on the contrary, is being increased and improved in every province of the kingdom ; 

 and that the indirect value to the people of many forest privileges, which they exercise 

 free of charge, must be very great, not to mention the benefit to all in the shape of 

 public recreation grounds and an improved climate, some idea may be arrived at of the 

 enormous value and benefit such a system of state forests must confer on Prussia. 



The forests, as already stated concerning Hanover, form part of the finance depart- 

 ment, and are presided over by an overland-forest-master, and ministerial director, aided 

 by a revenue councillor and joint ministerial director, and a numerous council or board. 



There are two forest academies, one near Berlin and one in Hanover. The overland- 

 forest-master is curator of the academies, and at the head of each is an over-forest-master, 

 who is aided by a numerous staflf of professors and assistant-professors. 



There are twelve provinces in Prussia, divided into thirty circles, and to each an 

 over-forest-master, who is appointed to represent the forest department in the council of 

 local administration, and is aided by councillors and by the forest masters as a board, to 

 represent forest interests in the government. Next in order come the forest-masters, 

 numbering one hundred and eight, in charge of divisions with an average area of sixty 

 thousand acres, and then the executive officers, seven hundred and six over-foresters, 

 to each of whom is 7,000 acres, and to each of whom is attached a cash-keeper, and 

 three thousand six hundred and forty-six foresters, or overseers, with ranges of a thousand 

 to three thousand acres. 



At the academy near Berlin are seven professors with assistants. There is an 

 experimental garden attached, with an over-forester in charge of the technical portion, 

 and professors for the meteorological, zoological, and chemical sections. The number of 

 students averages sixty-five. The varied apparatus includes a building where the seed is 

 dried and separated from the cones, large seed-beds of spruce, fir, and willow, full oppor- 

 tunities of transplanting seedlings, and examples of every kind of trees for botanical 

 study. 



There is here a museum, rich in specimens of all sorts of birds, animals, and insects 

 found in the forests. In cases where the animal or insect does damage to trees, speci- 

 mens of the branch, bark, leaf, or cone, in a healthy state, and after being attacked, are 

 exhibited close to each, so that the students can see at a glance the nature of the damage, 

 and connect it with the animal which causes it. Thus we have squirrels, rats, beavers, 

 mice, set up gnawing the barks, grubbing at the roots, etc. Insects are shown in the 

 several stages of their existence — larvae, chrysalis, caterpillar, moth, with their orami- 

 fications in the stem or branches of the tree. These, with specimen blocks of almost all 

 descriptions of timber, form a most instructive collection. There is a forest district 



