A Brief History of Forestry.. Fernow Bernhard Eduard

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      In spite of the sporadic efforts which had been made to bring about the recuperation of forest areas during the 18th century, the conditions of the forest at the beginning of the new century were most pitiable; the division of the Mark, by which the peasants became individual owners, profited little, and led to devastation rather than to improving the condition of the property. In addition, export trade in wood had become brisk, and the financial depression, a result of the French wars, led to increased exploitations, which, with the improvement in means of transportation, progressed to the more distant forest areas, and enlarged the waste area. Especially in the more densely populated parts of the country, the deforested area widened, and large wastes with poor young growth increased in all directions, in the same manner as now in the United States. The alarmists had good cause for renewing their cries, and, around the year 1800, a considerable literature sprung up on the subject of the threatened timber famine.

      It is interesting to note that at that time the Catalpa played a role, at least on paper, as it does in our own day, being recommended as the only means of staving off the timber famine. A renewed betulomania spread widely over the country. In North Germany especially, great efforts were made to replant the denuded areas and to change the coppice areas, fit only for firewood, to coniferous species, pine, etc., by which eventually a great change in the forest type from the original mixed forest to the pure forest was effected.

      3. Personnel

      The great change which led to improved conditions, during the first half of the century, was pre-eminently due to the knowledge and intelligence of a group of men, six in number, competent foresters, who combined the high grade education of the Cameralists with the practitioners’ knowledge: Hartig, Cotta, Hundeshagen, Koenig, Pfeil and Heyer. These men built, to be sure, on the shoulders of their precursors of the century in which they were born, but, being placed in authoritative positions, found better opportunities for putting their teachings into practice.

      The first two mentioned were older than the rest, and are usually described as the “fathers of modern forestry.” Born about a year apart, both educated at universities, they excelled in both scientific and practical directions.

      Georg Ludwig Hartig (1764-1837), studied at the University of Giessen and, after having served in various functions in various parts of Southern Germany, became, in 1811, head of the Prussian forest administration. He was equally eminent as a practical man and organizer, as a writer, and as a teacher. In literary direction his work lay not so much in developing new ideas as in formulating clearly the known ones, as evidenced in his celebrated “General Rules” in silviculture.

      Not less than thirty separate publications attest his assiduity. Among them stands pre-eminent “Anweisung zur Holzzucht für Foerster” (1791; 8th edition, 1818). As a teacher he began his work by establishing a masterschool (1789-1791) at Hungen, transferred to Stuttgart in 1807; and afterwards, as head of the Prussian forest administration, he lectured at the University of Berlin, continuing his lectures there, even after the forestry school at Eberswalde had been established, until his death.

      He may be considered as having established on a firm basis the forest administration of Prussia; and many of the things he instituted still prevail. In organizing the service, he introduced fixed salaries, he relieved the foresters from financial responsibilities, transferring all handling of money to a separate set of officials, whereby the temptation to fraudulent practice of graft was removed, and he issued instructions for the different grades of foresters; and every part of this work was all his own. In regulating the forest area of the state he developed the volume allotment method, which, however, proved too cumbersome to be readily applied to large areas. Toward the end of his life, his work was not entirely successful, and he lost prestige in his later years.

       Heinrich von Cotta (1763-1844) studied at the University of Jena, and afterwards practiced in Thuringia, where he established a master school at Zillbach (1795). In 1811, he was called to Saxony, as director of forest surveys, whither he also transferred his school, at Tharandt, which in 1816 was made a state institution and is still flourishing. In that year he was made the director of the Bureau of Forest Management. Like Hartig, he was eminent in the three directions of practical, literary, and educational work, but he excelled Hartig in originality, developing new principles and thought. Being a good plant-physiologist and observer of nature, he developed new ideas in silviculture, especially with reference to methods of thinning, and his “Anweisung zum Waldbau,” written in the simplest, clearest and most forceful manner, forms a classic worthy of study to this day. In the field of forest management he became the inventor of the area allotment method and the originator of the highly developed Saxon forest management. As a teacher he excelled in clearness, exposition, wealth of ideas and geniality.

      Of an entirely different stamp was the third of the great masters, Johann Christian Hundeshagen (1783-1834), who having studied in Heidelberg, became after some years of practice, professor of forestry at Tuebingen, in 1817, and at Giessen, 1825. He was a representative of the theoretical or philosophical side of forestry, being highly cultivated and imbued with the spirit of science. His bent was to systematize the knowledge in existence and extend it by means of exact experiments. In forest organization, he invented the well known formula method or “rational method” of regulating felling budgets and became also one of the founders of Forest Statics (1826) which he called “the doctrine of measuring forestal forces,” being thus the forerunner of modern scientific forestry.

      The fourth of the group, Gottlob König (1776-1849), was a practitioner without a university education, who had enjoyed the teaching and influence of Cotta whom he succeeded in Eisenach as the head of the ducal forest administration. He also founded here a private forest school, which, in 1830, became a state institution, and is still in existence. König became noted by his contributions to the scientific, especially the mathematical side of forestry, developing forest mensuration and statics. In this latter branch he was the forerunner of Pressler and of the modern school of finance. In his “Anleitung zur Holztaxation” (1813) he gives a complete account of forest mensuration and in the part devoted to forest valuation he develops the first soil rent formula and the methods of determining the cost value of stands. His “Forest Mathematics” (1835) in which he introduces factors of form and many other new ideas was an original contribution to science.

      Very different in character from these four leaders was the aggressive, sharp-witted Friedrich Wilhelm Leopold Pfeil (1783-1859), who, without a university education, and in spite of his poor knowledge of mathematics and natural history, advanced himself by native wit and genius. After a brief period of employment in private service, in the province of Silesia, he accepted the position of professor of forestry at the Berlin University, in 1821, in connection with Hartig, with whom, however, he was at sword’s point. It was at his instigation, with the assistance of von Humboldt, that the school was transferred, in 1830, to Eberswalde, Pfeil becoming its director.

      While Hartig was a generalizer, Pfeil was an individualizer, free from dogma, and most suggestive; a free lance and a fighter. Critical in the extreme and prolific in his literary work, he domineered the forestry literature of the day by means of his Kritische Blaetter, a journal of much import and merit.

      The youngest of the group, Karl Heyer (1797-1856), a thoroughly educated man, combined the professorial position in the University of Giessen (1835) with practical management of a forest district, but in 1834 abandoned the latter in order to devote himself entirely to literary work. He was one of the clearest and most systematic expounders, and both his Waldbau (silviculture, 1854) and his Waldertragsregelung (forest organization, 1841) are classics. The last, fifth edition of the Waldbau, appearing in 1906 in two volumes, has been brought up to date by Professor Hess. He devised one of the most rational methods of forest organization, and, imbued with the necessity of basing forest management on exact scientific inquiry, instead of on empiricism alone, he formulated instructions for forest static СКАЧАТЬ