A Brief History of Forestry.. Fernow Bernhard Eduard

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СКАЧАТЬ reboisement of torrents had already in 1788, been recognized as a proper public measure in German Austria, although active work in that direction was not begun until nearly a century later.

      The rise of prices during the 17th and 18th centuries had been very considerable, doubling, trebling and even quadrupling in the first half of the 18th century. The mercantilistic doctrines of the time led, therefore, to attempts to keep prices low by prescribing rates for wood and in general by restricting and regulating wood commerce.

      This was done especially by interdicting sale to outsiders, forbidding export from the small territory of the particular prince; or, at least, giving preference to the inhabitants of the territory as purchasers and at cheaper rates.

      Owing to the small size of the very many principalities, the free development of trade was considerably hampered by these regulations. Sometimes also wood imports were prohibited, as for instance, in Wurttemberg, when, in 1740, widespread windfalls had occurred which had to be worked up and threatened to overstock the market.

      Wood depots under government control were established in large cities, and the amount of wood to be used per capita prescribed, as in Koenigsberg (1702).

      In Berlin, in 1766, a monopoly of the fuel wood market was rented to a corporation, excluding all others except by permission of the company. This was in 1785 supplanted by government administration of the woodyards.

      Another such monopoly was created in the “Nutzholzhandelsgesellschaft” (Workwood sales agency) for the export trade of building materials from Kurmark and Magdeburg, which had prior right of purchase to all timber cut within given territory, the idea being to provide cheap material for the industries. This, too, came into the hands of the State in 1771.

      In Prussia, to prevent overcharges, the Jews were excluded from the wood trade in 1761.

      The exercise of the Forsthoheit (princely supervision), originating in the ban forests, and favored by the mercantilistic and absolutist ideas of the 17th and 18th centuries, gradually grew until the end of the 18th century to such an extent that the forest owners themselves were not allowed to cut a tree without sanction of some forest official, and could not sell any wood without permission, even down to hop-poles, although the large landed property owners vigorously resisted this assumption of supervisory powers. Much discussion and argument regarding the origin of this right to supervision was carried on by the jurists upon the basis of Roman law doctrine, and it was proved by them to be of ancient date. The degree, however, to which this supervision was developed varied considerably in the different parts of the empire, according to different economic conditions. The interference, and the protection of forests appeared more necessary, where advanced civilization and denser population created greater need for it. We find therefore that the restrictive policy was much more developed in the Southern and Western territories than in the Northern and Eastern ones, where the development begins two centuries later.

      The oldest attempts of controlling private forest property are found in Bavaria (1516), Brunswick (1590) and Wurttemberg (1614). Here, forest properties were placed either entirely under the supervision of the princely forest administration, or, at least, permission for intended fellings had to be secured. Later, these restrictions were considerably reduced in rigor (Bavaria, 1789).

      In Prussia, private forest property remained free from government interference well into the 18th century. An edict by the Great Elector, in 1670, merely inveighs against the devastation of forests by their owners, but refrains from any interference; and the Forstordnung of 1720 also contains only the general injunction to the owners not to treat their forests uneconomically. But, in 1766, Frederick the Great instituted a rigid supervision providing punishment for fellings beyond a special budget determined by experts. Soon after the French revolution, however, unrestricted private ownership was re-established.

      Church and cloister property had always been severely supervised, similar to the Mark and other communal forest property, under the direction either of specially appointed officials or the officials of the princes. Finally, in some sections (Hesse-Kassel, 1711; Baden, 1787), the management of these communal forests was entirely undertaken by the government.

      In Prussia, by the Order of 1754, the foresters of the State were charged with the supervision of the communal forests, in which they were to designate the trees to be felled and the cultures to be executed; but as there was no pay connected with this additional duty and the districts were too large, the execution of this supervision was but indifferently performed.

      In 1749, a special city forest order placed the city forests in Prussia under the provincial governments, requiring for their management the employment of a forester and the inspection of his work by the provincial forestmaster.

      5. Personnel

      Although all this supervision was probably more or less lax, the possibility of more general and incisive influence was increasing because the personnel to whom such supervision could be intrusted was at last coming into existence.

      The men in whose hands at the beginning of the 18th century lay the task of developing and executing forest policies and of developing forestry practice came from two very different classes. The work in the woods fell naturally to the share of the huntsmen and forest guards, who by their practical life in the woods had secured some wood lore and developed some technical detail upon empiric basis. These so-called holzgerechte Jaeger (woodcrafty hunters) prepared for their duties by placing themselves under the direction of an established huntsman, who taught them what he knew about the rules of the chase, while by questioning woodchoppers, colliers, etc., and by their own observation the knowledge of woodcraft was acquired.

      At the head of affairs stood the so-called cameralists or chamber officials, men who had prepared themselves by the study of philosophy, law, diplomacy and political economy for the positions of directors of finance and State administration. Rather ignorant of natural science, and without practical forestry knowledge, their efforts were not always well directed. They deserve credit, however, for having collected into encyclopædic volumes the empiric knowledge of the practitioners or Holzgerechten, and for having elaborated it more or less successfully. In this work they were joined by some of the professors of cameralia and law at the universities.

      By the middle of the 18th century the hunters had so far grown in knowledge and education as to be able to produce their knowledge in books of their own. Quite a literature developed full of acrimonious warfare of opinions, as is the rule where empiricism rules supreme.

      Notable progress, however, came only when hunting was placed in the background and more or less divorced from forest work.

      6. Development of Silviculture

      In addition to the restrictive measures and attempts at mere conservative lumbering without much thought of reproduction, there were as early as the 16th century silvicultural methods applied to secure or foster reproduction.

      Owing to differences in local conditions and difference in necessities, this development varied greatly in various sections as to the time it took place. The Western and Middle country practiced as early as the 16th century what in the Eastern country did not appear until the 18th century. The forest ordinances, from which we derive our knowledge or inferences of these conditions, prescribed, to be sure, many things that probably were not really put into practice.

      a. Natural regeneration was at first merely favored, without the adoption of any very positive measures to secure it, namely, by removing the cut wood within the year, so as to give young growth a chance of establishing itself, by removing the brush so as not to smother the young growth, by keeping out cattle from the young growth (Schonung).

      If the selection method of lumbering, most generally СКАЧАТЬ