590 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE FOEESTS AND FOEESTEY OF GEEMANY 



By Peofessor WILLIAM R. LAZENBY 



OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY 



DTJEING the past year I have had the rare opportunity to observe 

 the forests and to learn something of the general forest policy 

 of various European countries. My interest in this subject prompts me 

 to present a few notes. I am glad to do this because in this country the 

 subject of forestry is now claiming, and is bound to receive, greater 

 attention than has heretofore been given to it. 



The increasing scarcity of timber within the first half of the second 

 century of our nation's history, in spite of the variety and richness of 

 its sylva and extent of its primitive woodland, is a condition that calls 

 for earnest consideration and should invoke the interest of every public- 

 spirited citizen. From the standpoint of administration and thorough 

 system the German forest service is not paralleled elsewhere, and its 

 intensive development is nowhere surpassed. Such being the fact, I 

 shall confine myself mainly to what I have seen in Germany. 



"Why has Germany developed a more systematic, a more advanced 

 forest policy than any other nation? Let us briefly consider. In the 

 first place, it should be clearly understood that the German empire in 

 its federal capacity has nothing whatever to do with its forests. The 

 control of the forests is exclusively in the hands of the various states, 

 which in their confederated form make the nation called Germany. 

 Each state government directs the forest policy of its own state and 

 the national government has never interfered in any way or manner 

 with this procedure. 



Speaking of Germany as a whole, the great impetus to a general 

 forestry movement was received about 1750. At that time the popula- 

 tion was rapidly increasing and nearly all of the strictly agricultural 

 land had been cleared. Coal had not then been discovered, or was not 

 available for use. There was no fuel, oil or gas, comparatively little 

 peat, and no means of transporting fuel wood from the mountain 

 forests. A succession of winters of unusual severity caused much suf- 

 fering and the imminence of a general fuel famine stared the people in 

 the face. From this time the art of forestry developed with great 

 rapidity. Everybody was interested because everybody needed fuel. 

 "Within a comparatively short time most of the state governments had 

 formulated some forest policy, the principal feature being an effort to 

 secure a continuously sustained yield of fuel wood and timber from all 

 forest lands. One fundamental principle was that no more wood 



