2 CIRCULAB 4 71, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



policy. It is given at least as much weight as the objective of sup- 

 plying the national timber requirements and the protection of soil 

 and water. 



This study was undertaken in the belief that an examination of 

 the extent and conditions of employment in the managed forests of 

 central Europe would be of interest to the people of the United States. 

 Here, as in Europe, provision of useful employment for rural people 

 is bound to receive more and more attention in planning programs of 

 forest development. A few geographic facts will help to explain why 

 this function of the forests is so important in Germany. 



Germany has a land area slightly smaller than that of Michigan, 

 Wisconsin, and Minnesota. It lies considerably farther north, how- 

 ever. Munich, near the extreme southern part, is in about the same 

 latitude as Duluth; the northern part of East Prussia is as far north 

 as Ketchikan, Alaska, or northern Labrador. The mean annual 

 temperatures (40° to 50° F.) are not greatly different from those in 

 our Lake States, but the German winters average somewhat warmer 

 (except in East Prussia) and the summers are a little cooler. The 

 annual rainfall has about the same range (16 to 35 inches) as in the 

 Lake States, except for a few localities of heavier precipitation at 

 high altitudes in Germany, and the distribution through the year is 

 similar. The soils of Germany are naturally no more fertile, on the 

 average, but probably less so, than those of the Lake States. Like 

 the Lake States, Germany has large areas of sand plains and moors. 



There are in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota 600,000 farms, 

 with an arable area (cropland and improved pasture) of approximately 

 47,000,000 acres. Germany has 5,100,000 farms, 2 with about 67,000,- 

 000 acres of arable land (plow land and meadows). The three Lake 

 States have about 51,000,000 acres of forest land; Germany has less 

 than 32,000,000, or not quite as much as Michigan and Wisconsin. 

 The annual cut of all classes of timber in the Lake States averaged 

 about 1,250,000,000 cubic feet for the period 1925-29, while in Ger- 

 many the average cut for the same period was about 1,750,000,000 

 cubic feet. The Lake States' cut was approximately twice the incre- 

 ment; in Germany, cut and increment about balanced each other. 



Germauy's population is close to seven times that of the Lake States. 

 For these States to be settled as densely as Germany it would be 

 necessary to crowd into them, in addition to the people already there, 

 the entire population of the other States north of the Ohio and Potomac 

 Rivers and east of the Mississippi, plus Virginia, West Virginia, Ken- 

 tucky, and Iowa. It is evident that Germany must use her land 

 resources to the utmost in order to support her people. 



Intensive use of the land, therefore, has been and inevitably must 

 continue to be a fundamental objective of the German national policy, 

 whatever may be the form or the political control of the Government. 

 This objective has been considerably emphasized by the post-war trend 

 toward economic autarchy which has developed in Germany just as 

 it has in many other countries. Closely related to this basic objective, 

 and growing partly out of it, are the national agricultural and popula- 

 tion policies. These policies are not new, but they have received a 

 new impetus during the last few years. One aim is to bring about a 

 better distribution of population by checking the heavy movement 



2 The figures are not exactly comparable, because the United States census omits farms under 3 acres 

 unless they produce crops worth $250 or more. 



