30 CIRCULAR 4 71, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



For many years the State (at least in Prussia) felt no obligation 

 to provide housing for its forest workers. Only in 1877 was the Finance 

 Department persuaded to allow the renting of houses to workers. 

 By 1892 the Forest Service was renting 470 apartments in 214 houses. 

 Since 1892 there have been appropriations almost every year to build 

 workers' houses. These are ordinarily modest houses, frequently 

 built of logs, and are mostly in districts where there are few settled 

 workers, especially in the eastern provinces. Houses are usually 

 built to accommodate two to four families. At the end of 1934 the 

 State owned 1.199 forest-workers' houses, with accommodations for 

 2,268 families (#4). This does not include the living quarters and 

 administrative structures occupied by forest officers, which numbered 

 about 5.000. There were also 100 camps (Herbergen\ occupied dur- 

 ing the logging season. The average rent charged the workers for 

 houses was 99 marks a year in 1934 (about $40). 



Besides the living quarters, nearly 43.000 acres of arable and 

 pasture land was leased to some 18.000 workers in the Prussian forests 

 in 1934. at an average annual rental of about RM5 (S2) an acre. 

 The rentals vary, of course, with land values and local economic 

 conditions. In 1934 the range was from RM2.6 in the Allenstein 

 district of East Prussia (rather poor land and plenty of it) to RM10.4 

 in the industrial Oppeln district of Silesia. Since 1919 workers have 

 been able to lease land for 18-year terms. In most districts such a 

 lessee is obligated to work on the forest, at regular wages, whenever 

 called upon to do so. and in some instances this applies also to trie- 

 other adult members of his family. It is generally the policy to rent 

 workers only enough land to provide food for their families, but not so 

 much that they will not need the forest work (33). In some East 

 Prussian forests most of the workers own their homes, and either own 

 a few acres of arable land or rent it from the State. The aim is to 

 give each worker at least 2.5 acres of land. Each family generally 

 owns a cow or a flock of geese. 



The communes and some of the large private forest estates make 

 similar provision for their workers. On a private forest in East 

 Prussia, for example, several of the permanent workers are given a 

 house and garden for a rental of about S30 a year, and can rent addi- 

 tional fields if desired. . They also get 7 cords of firewood at half 

 again the cost of cutting it. and summer pasture and winter feed for a 

 cow at a low price. (Wages for wood cutters here were about S2 for 

 a 10-hour day in 1928.) In some cases private owners have helped 

 their workers to buy or build houses of their own. either through 

 advancing credits or through furnishing timber and other materials 

 below market prices. 



The main objective of public as well as of private forest manage- 

 ment has usually been to make a profit. Income from the forests 

 was an important item in the budgets of communes and States. Both 

 the owners and the workers have desired to make as much as they 

 could currently, and sometimes the long-time aspects have been over- 

 looked. In the past, the workers were not bound to the forest, but 

 had become an unrooted proletariat like the city workers: when a 

 better job was offered they left the forests, and in many places there 

 was a shortage of wood cutters {40). As Dieterich (fl) points out, 

 this unstable working force was not conducive to sustained-yield 

 forest management — 



