GERMAN FOREST CONDITIONS. 215 



land can be cleared. Devastation is an offense, and in some States, notably Wurttemberg, a badly 

 neglected forest property may be reforested and managed by State authorities. In nearly all 

 States laws exist with regard to so-called " protective forests" i. e., forests needed to prevent floods, 

 sand blowing, land and snow slides^ or to insure regularity of water supply, etc. Forests proved 

 to fall under this category are under special control, but as it is not easy in most cases to prove 

 the protective importance of a forest, the laws are difficult to apply and rarely enforced. 



A partial return to the State supervision of private forests has been attempted in Prussia by 

 the establishment of a law which renders the owuer of a forest liable for the damage which the 

 devastation or clearing of his forest property causes to his neighbor. This law, however, like the 

 former, is so difficult to apply, and puts the plaintiff to great expense, so that so far it has not 

 been enforced to any extent except where the Government itself is the injured party. 



In the following statement the areas of forest are grouped according to the degree of State 

 supervision and manner of management: 



Of the entire 34,700,000 acres of forest land, there are approximately — 



(1) Managed by State authorities as State property, 11,3G0,000 acres, which is 32,7~per cent. 



(2) Managed by the State authorities, but the property of corporations, villages, towns, etc., 

 a little over 2,212,000 acres, which is 6.3 per cent. 



(3) Under strict Government control, the plans of management and the permissible cut having 

 to be approved by State authorities (corporation property), 3,875,000 acres, which is 11.1 per cent. 



(4) Under supervision of the State, not only as common property but as special property, 

 subject to inspection and, in part, to control of State forest authorities; nearly all private prop- 

 erty and partly belonging to large estates, 4,767,000 acres, which is 13.7 per cent. 



(5) Without any Government control or supervision beyond that of common property. These 

 forests may be divided, sold, cleared, and mismanaged, except under the certain cases before men- 

 tioned. Here belong all private forests of Saxony and Prussia and part of the corporation forests 

 of Prussia and all those of Saxony, 11,490,000 acres, which is 33 per cent. 



CHARAOTEB OF FOREST GROWTH. 



The greater part of the German forests is stocked with conifers, chiefly pine (the Scotch pine, 

 a pine similar to our red or Norway pine) and spruce. The pine prevails on the sandy areas of 

 North Germany, and occupies about 60 per cent of the Prussian and 30 per cent of the Bavarian 

 forests. The spruce is the chief conifer and principal timber tree of Saxony and southern Ger- 

 many. The hard woods, chiefly beech, some oaks, with small amounts of ash, maple, elm, etc., 

 are most abundant in the valley of the Ehine, Lorraine, and Wurttemberg, but good beech forests 

 occur in nearly all parts of the Empire. 



The greater part of all forests of Germany are "timber forests," where the trees are cut at an 

 age of over 80 years (generally 90 to 120 years). 1 Timber forests form over 90 per cent of the State 

 forests of all larger States, are the prevalent form in t»he forests of corporations, and are common 

 in those of private owners. The other two common forms, the "coppice" and "standard coppice," 

 where the trees are cut at an age of less than 30 years (usually 15 to 25 years, and in the standard 

 coppice a small part only is allowed to reach better age and size), are most abundant in private 

 forests and to a less extent in corporation properties, but form only a very small part of the 

 State woods, where they are steadily diminishing in importance. The coppice is a hard-wood 

 forest, depends on the sprouting capacity of the trees, and furnishes small poles, firewood, and 

 tanbark. Both forms of the coppice and standard coppice require a smaller amount of standing 

 timber, furnish quicker returns, but do not furnish those kinds of products which the market 

 demands in largest quantity. 



In the timber forest the trees of any particular tract or division are supposed to be of about 

 the same age, differing not over 20 years in the extreme, so that for a rotation of one hundred 

 years, i. e., a management where the crop is harvested at the age of 100 years, one-fifth, or 20 per 

 cent, of all the forests should be 1 to 20 years old; another 20 per cent, 21 to 40 years old, etc. 

 In spite of the great difficulty of attaining this regularity of distribution in the forests of an 

 entire State without disturbing the yearly cut of timber, this regularity is already attained very 

 closely in most of the State forests. Thus in the State forests of Prussia, of the total area of 



1 For fuller description of the systems of management, see pp. 225 to 259 of this report. 



