FORESTS AND EMPLOYMENT IX GERMANY 35 



The numbers of establishments and persons employed in various 

 industries in 1925, according to Dieterich (10), are given in table 25. 

 These figures appear to be on a different basis from those given above. 

 The small average size of establishments in most of the industries is 

 striking. In some lines hand work predominates. This is particu- 

 larly true of cabinet work, cooperage, wagon building, and basket 

 making. 



German sawmills are characteristically small. Many of them are 

 very primitive and their output is low. Water-driven mills are com- 

 mon, especially in the mountains. Practically all are stationary mills; 

 portables are virtually unknown. Many of these small mills are 

 strictly family affairs, operated by a farmer and members of his house- 

 hold. The average number of employees in a sawmill in 1925 was 14, 

 for the Reich as a whole. In Brandenburg the average was 26, in 

 Wurttemberg only 8. 



Although it is realized that greater efficiency could be attained by 

 concentrating lumber manufacture at a relatively few large mills, 

 this is not considered socially desirable, and it is the general policy to 

 encourage continued operation of the small local units. In the 

 Franconian Forest (Frankenwald) of Bavaria, for example, 105 mills 

 saw only 19,000 cubic meters of timber a year, or an average of 181 

 cubic meters apiece (about 45,000 board feet). Many of these are 

 cooperative undertakings, with the individual owners' shares about 

 15 cubic meters a year. If this output were all concentrated in a few 

 larger steam mills, many persons would lose the opportunity to work 

 for a few days or weeks and to earn the small amount of cash which 

 enables them to retain their small farms and without which they 

 would probably become public charges. In recognition of this fact, 

 it is the deliberate policy of the State Forest Service to sell them the 

 timber they need instead of selling to large-scale operators, even 

 though this may involve a financial sacrifice. 15 



Similar conditions prevail in Austria, where there were, in 1930, 

 some 5,740 sawmills, or 1 mill for every 1,350 acres of productive forest 

 land. It has been stated that 200 fully mechanized mills with modern 

 equipment could saw the same quantity of lumber. This, however, 

 would reduce the number of workers from nearly 23,000 to about 6,000 

 and would compel thousands of families to give up their farms and 

 join the city proletariat (17). 



The idea that is prevalent in the United States, that a sustained- 

 yield unit to supply one mill must include scores of thousands of acres, 

 would be hardly conceivable to a forester or sawmill operator in cen- 

 tral Europe. The Bareufels forest in the Saxon Erzgebirge, for 

 example, with a total productive area of about 7,500 acres, supplies the 

 timber used by 13 permanent sawmills, besides shipping out con- 

 siderable quantities of pulp wood. A small mill adjacent to the 

 Tharandt State forest cuts about 3,500 cubic feet of logs a month, 

 from 1 1 or 12 different species of timber. 



Dieterich says (9): 



If it is desired to prevent depopulation of the forest districts and check the 

 growth of proletarianism, measures must be adopted to promote the timber indus- 

 tries of the more remote, forested portions of the country. At the same time, 

 sucn a policy will best promote permanent forest management. Technical, and 

 to some extent commercial, rationalization in this respect would point toward 

 somewhat different goals than those indicated by sound socio-economic rationality. 



15 Based on unpublished official records. 



