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states. They appear to us entirely impractical under our conditions, 
and they have proved largely impractical and a failure in European 
states as far as they were attempted. 
The restrictions which are imposed on private woodland owners in 
Europe take by no means the form of limiting the diameter of trees to 
be cut, as is often believed, but they are of a general character, and 
include injunctions against devastation and the demand that clearing 
of lands be not done without the permission of government; that where 
dangers from deforestation are anticipated, reforestation after cutting 
or during cutting should be provided for. 
In France and Italy such restrictions refer only to woods within cer- 
tain limits where damage is sure to follow indiscriminate cutting. In 
Germany direct restrictions of private control of forest property exist 
only with regard to 14.6 per cent of the total forest area, or 29.6 per 
cent of the private forest property, while the 70.3 per cent of private 
forest (34.5 per cent of all forests) are entirely without such restrictions 
except by civil process.. This requires that a property owner should 
first prove by a jury, for the proceedings of which he has to pay, that 
damage to him must result from an inconsiderate treatment of his 
neighbor’s forest, and then he must indemnify the neighbor fully for 
the curtailment of the exercise of his unlimited property rights. Under 
these circumstances the state 1s almost the only person to use this law. 
The forest property of the cities, villages, and other communities or 
public institutions (about 15 per cent) are, to be sure, subject to more 
or less stringent control by the central government, so as to prevent 
misuse. It is rather more through example and educational means 
than otherwise that the state has influenced private owners to exercise 
good judgment in the use of their forest property. Lately, however, 
it would appear that the leading governments recognize that the duty 
of the state is to possess itself of all truly forest soils—i. e., such as are 
on account of their location or character unfit for agriculture or which 
should be maintained in forest growth to prevent erosion of slopes, 
blowing of sand dunes, and dangers to water courses, ete. 
In France the government has increased its holdings since 1876 
by 340,000 acres, and has in addition spent in the neighborhood of 
$40,000,000 toward reforesting dunes and devastated mountain sides. 
In Prussia, which represents two-thirds of Germany, for a number 
of years exchanges of the state forest property on agricultural lands 
and purchase of such waste lands have been the rule. Altogether 
between the years 1867 and 1895 over $5,000,000 were spent in increas- 
ing the forest area of the government, each year’s budget containing a 
considerable item for such purposes, that of 1895 and 1896 carried. 
$500,000 for such purchases of waste lands. 
Bavaria increased its holdings in the last twenty-five years by 4 per 
cent. Wurtemberg, the state where all clearing is absolutely controlled 
by the government, increased its area by purchase by over 3 per cent, 
and Austria pursues the same policy. 
