Part 4

In that century, division of the Mark forest begins for the alleged reason that individual ownership would lead to better management and less devastation. In the 12th and 13th centuries also, stricter order in the fellings and in forest use was insisted upon in many places. In the forest ordinances of the princes and barons, which, of course, have always reference to limited localities, we find prescriptions like the following: The amount to be cut is to be limited to the exact needs of each family and the proper use of the wood is to be inspected; the timber is to be marked, must be cut in a given time and be removed at once; only dry wood is to be used for fuel and the place and time for gathering it is specially designated, similar to the present practice. The best oak and beech are to be preserved (this, however, merely with reference to the mast), and in the Alps we find already provisions to reserve larch and pine. The charcoal industry is favored (because of easier transportation of its product), but permitted only under special precautions. Bark peeling and burning for potash is forbidden. The pasture is regulated with regard to the young growth, and sheep and goats are excluded.

Such measures are, to be sure, found only here and there where local conditions gave rise to a fear of a timber famine; such communities may also be found making attempts to protect themselves against reduction of home supplies by forbidding the export of wood from their territory. An amusing restriction of this kind is found at Altenstadt where the bakers were forbidden to bake bread for any but the citizens of the town.

The first ordinance prohibiting for clearings is found at Lorsch in the Rhenish country in 1165, and other ordinances with such prohibition are on record in other parts in the 13th century. In 1237, at Salzburg, clearings were prohibited in the interest of the salt mines, “so that the cut forest may grow up to wood again,” and also in other parts where mining interests made a special demand for props or charcoal the regulation of forest use was begun early.

The difficulties of transportation in the absence of roads rendered local supply of more importance than at present, and this accounts for the early measures to secure more economical use while distant woods were still plentiful but unavailable.

While in the 12th and 13th centuries a merely restrictive and regulative, or else a let-alone policy, “allowing the wood to grow up,” prevailed, we find in the 14th century the first beginnings of an attempt at forest extension or recuperation.

In 1309, Henry VII ordered the reforestation of a certain stripped area by sowing. Of the execution of this order we have no record, but the first actually executed plantation on record is that by the city of Nuremberg, in 1368, where several hundred acres of burned area were sowed with pine, spruce and fir; and there is also a record that in 1449 this crop was harvested. In 1420, the city of Frankfort on the Main followed this example, relying on the Nuremberg seed dealer, whose correspondence is extant and who was invited to go to Frankfort for advice how to proceed. He sowed densely in order to secure clear boles, but expressed the opinion that the plants could not be transplanted; he also relied on the phases of the moon for his operations.

The planting of hardwoods seems to have been begun much later; the first reference to it coming from the cloister and city of Seligenstadt, which agreed in 1491 to reforest annually 20 to 30 acres with oak.

Natural regeneration by coppice was in quite general practice and proved satisfactory enough for fuelwood production. The system of coppice with standards was also frequently practised, the standards, 20 or 30 to the acre, being “reserved for the lord.”

In the timber forest, the unregulated selection system was continued generally through the period, although in 1454 we find in the Harz Mountains a transition to a seed tree management, a few seed trees or groups of seed trees being left on the otherwise cleared area, somewhat in the manner of the French _méthode à tire et-aire_. Toward the end of the 15th century we find here and there a distinction made between timber forest, where no firewood is to be cut, and “leaf forest” which is to serve the latter purpose, and is to be treated as coppice.

Toward the end of the period we find, however, various provisions which are unquestionably dictated by the fear of a scarcity of timber. The discovery that pasture prevents natural regeneration led to a prohibition of pasturing in the newly cut felling areas. In 1488, we find already a diameter limit of 12 inches--just as is being advocated in the United States now--as a basis for conservative exploitation, the city of Brunswick buying stumpage, and in the contract being limited to this diameter, and in addition obligated to leave 15 oaks or aspen per acre for seed trees.

Attempts at regulating the use of a given forest by division into felling areas are recorded in 1359, when the city forest of Erfurt, 286 acres, was divided into seven felling areas. It is questionable whether this referred to a coppice with short rotation or whether a selection forest with seven periodic areas is meant.

We see, then, that the first sporadic and, to be sure, crude beginnings of a forest management in Germany may be traced back to the 14th and 15th centuries; but it took at least 250 to 350 years before such management became general.

Outside of the information found scattered in forest ordinances, instructions and prescriptions of various kinds there is no forestry literature to be recorded from this period except one single book, published about the year 1300, by an Italian, Petrus de Crescentiis, which was translated into German. It was merely a scholastic compilation on agriculture and allied subjects, mostly cribbed from old Roman writers and without value for German conditions.

II. FIRST DEVELOPMENT OF FORESTRY METHODS.

(Period 1500 to 1800.)

The period following the middle ages marks the gradual changes from the feudal system to the modern State organizations and to considerable change of ownership conditions and forest treatment. Various causes which led to an increased development of industrial life were also instrumental in hastening the progress of forest destruction. At the same time, during this period the germs and embryonic beginnings of every branch of forestry, real forestry policy, forestry practice and forestry science are to be noted. By the end of this period, preparatory to more modern conditions, we find organized technical forest administrations, well developed methods of silviculture and systems of forest management.

1. _Development of Forest Property Conditions._

A number of changes in the conceptions of political relations, in methods of life and of political economy brought further changes in property conditions on the same lines as those prevailing in the 14th and 15th centuries. These changes were especially influenced by the spread of Roman law doctrine regarding the rights of the governing classes; by the growth of the cities, favoring industrial development and changing methods of life; by the change from barter to money management, favored by the discovery of America, by other world movements, and by the resulting changes in economic theory.

Through the discovery of the new world and the influx of gold and silver that came with it gave impetus to industry and commerce of the cities; the rapid increase of money capital increased extravagance and induced a desire for amassing wealth, which changed modes of life, changed policies and systems of political economy.

The fiscal policy of the many little principalities was dominated by a desire to get a good balance of trade by fostering exports of manufactures, but forbidding exports of raw materials like forest products, also by forbidding imports, subsidizing industries, fixing prices by law, and taking in general an inimical attitude towards outsiders except in so far as they sent gold and silver into the country.

This so-called mercantilistic system, which saw wealth not in labor and its products but in horded gold and silver, had also full sway in England under Cromwell, and in France under Colbert’s influence. This fiscal policy, which was bent upon bringing cash into the country, led, under the direction of servile officials, to oppressive measures. A reaction naturally followed, when it was pointed out that the real wealth of a nation lies in its natural resources and in its labor. But this so-called physiocratic doctrine had little practical influence except to prepare men’s minds for the reception of the teachings of Adam Smith at the end of the period.

The doctrine of the Roman law, deified by the jurists and commentators, undermined the national conceptions and institutions of free citizenship and of existing property relations; courts, legislation and administration were subject to their sway, and this influence lasted, in spite of reactions, until the end of the 18th century. Under it the doctrine of the _imperium_--the seignorage or superior power of the princes (Hoheitsrecht)--was further developed into the _dominium terrae_, i.e., superior ownership of all the land, which gives rise to the title and the exercise of the function of “_Landesherren_,” masters of the land, and confers the privilege of curtailing and even discontinuing private property rights. To sustain their position in each of the state units, a restriction of the autonomy of churches and cloisters, of the Mark and of the vassals became needful to the princes. This was secured by taking the first under their protection, by making themselves Obermärkers, and by changing vassals who held office in fief into employes (Beamte). For a time the three privileged classes of prelates, knights and burghers, combined in the _Landstand_ or _Landtag_, participated in some of the functions of government, especially in raising and administering taxes, but by the second half of the 14th century the princes had become absolute, and the doctrine of the _Hoheitsrecht_ was firmly established.

Under this doctrine, the historic position of the Mark is perverted and instead of being the common property of the people, it becomes the property of the prince, on which he graciously permits the usufruct; for, forest, pasture and water (Wald, Weide, Wasser) are _res publicae_, hence ownerless and at the disposal of the king. Through this new construction of relationship, as well as through the same machinations and tricks which the princes as _Obermaerker_ or headmen of the Mark had employed during the foregoing period in usurping power, and partly through voluntary dissolution was the decadence of the social, economic and political organization of the Mark gradually completed.

The original usufruct of a property held in common is explained in the Roman sense as a _precarium_ or servitude, and from being a right of the whole organization becomes a right of the single individual or group of individuals. In this way the socialistic basis of the Mark is destroyed. Through the exercise of the _Forsthoheit_, _i.e._, the superior right of the prince over all forest property, by the _appointment_ of the officials instead of their _election_, by issuance of ordinances, in short, by the usurpation of the legislative and police power, the political power of the Mark is broken and the Thirty Years’ War completes the breakdown; the pride of the burgher and the peasant is gone, their autonomy destroyed and their economic and political organizations sink into mere corporations based on land tenure, which, according to Roman doctrine come under the regulation of the State or Prince.

The nobility move into the cities and leave the administration of their estates to officials who are constantly pressed to furnish the means for the extravagant life of their masters. These in turn harass and oppress the peasantry, who finally become bondsmen, _Gutshörige_ (bound to the glebe) and lose their independence entirely. These, briefly, are the steps by which the changes, social and economic, progressed.

Reforms in this situation of the peasantry began first in Prussia in 1702, when bondage was abolished for all those who could purchase their houses and farms from the gentry. As few had the means to do so, the result was the creation of a proletariat, hitherto unknown because under the old feudal system the lord had to feed his impoverished bondsmen from which he was now absolved.

* * * * *

_Changes in forest property_ in particular were brought about by the increase of princely property through the various methods of exercising the seignorage. Especially after the Thirty Years’ War ownerless tracts falling under this right were plentiful. In addition, wherever waste lands grew up to wood, they were claimed by the princes:

“Wenn das Holz dem Ritter reicht an den Sporn Hat der Bauer sein Recht verlorn.”

When wood has grown up to the spur of the knight, the peasant has lost his right.

Some additions came from the secularization of church and cloister property, and others by the slices which the princes as Obermärker secured from the Mark forests by various artifices. It is these properties, which in Prussia were turned over by the King to the State in 1713, and by other princes, not until the 19th century.

The same means which the princes employed were used by the landed gentry to increase their holdings especially at the expense of the Mark from which in their capacity of Obermärker they secured portions by force or intrigue.

The peasants’ forest property--the Mark forest--had by the 19th century been almost entirely dismembered, part having come into the hands of the princes and barons, part having been divided among the Märker, and part having become corporation forest in the modern sense.

Partition had become desirable when the restrictions of use which were ordered for the good of the forest became unendurable under the rigid rule of appointed officials, but the expected improvement in management which was looked for from partition and private ownership was never realized.

After the Thirty Years’ War the free cities were impoverished and their autonomy undermined by Roman doctrine. From free republics they became mere corporations under the supervision of appointed officials, and experienced decadence in political as well as material directions. Hence, no increase in city forest took place except through division of the Mark forest in which cities had been co-owners, and through secularized properties of cloisters.

The worst feature, from the standpoint of forest treatment, which resulted from these changes in property conditions and relationship, was the growth of the pernicious servitudes or rights of user, which were either conferred to propitiate the powerless but dangerous peasantry, or evolved out of the feudal relations. From the 16th to the 19th centuries these servitudes grew to such an extent that in almost every forest some one outside of the owner had the right to use parts of it, either the pasture, or the litter, or certain classes or sizes of wood.

These rights have proved the greatest impediment to the progress of forestry until most recent times, and only within the last few decades have the majority of them been extinguished by legal process or compromise.

2. _Forest Conditions._

Under the exercise of these various rights and the uncertainty of property conditions, the forest conditions naturally deteriorated continuously until the end of the 18th century; the virgin woods were culled of their wealth and then grew up to brush, as is usual in the United States.

Every forest ordinance began with complaints regarding the increasing forest devastation, and predicted a timber famine in view of the increasing population, increasing industry and commerce, and hence increased wood consumption. Especially along the water routes, which furnished the means of transportation, the available supplies were ruthlessly exploited. More serious enemies than the exploitation of the timber proved the pasturing of cattle, the removal of the litter, and above all, the fires.

Towards the end of the 16th century, ordinances against forest fires began to be enacted; yet, as late as 1778, the necessity of keeping the rides or fire lanes open in the forests of Eastern Prussia is justified by the statement that “otherwise the still constantly recurring fires could not be checked.” At another place it is stated that “not a single acre of forest could be found in the province that had not been burnt in former or later times,” and that “the people are still too much accustomed to the ruthless use of fires, so that no punishment can stop them.”

Other causes of devastation were the Thirty Years’ War, the wars of the 18th century, and the loss of interest in the forest by the peasants after the collapse of the Mark. These had often to steal what they needed, and their depredations were increased by the desire to revenge themselves on the landed proprietors for the oppressions to which they were subjected. The increase in game, which was fostered by the landed gentry, did much damage to the young growths, and the increase in the living expenses of the nobility who mostly abandoned country for town had to be met by increased exploitation.

By the end of the middle ages the reduction of forest area had proceeded so far that it was generally believed desirable to restrict the making of clearings to exceptional necessities, except in the northeastern parts and in the distant mountain districts.

Yet a growing population increased the need for farm land, and since intensive use of the existing farm area was not attempted until the end of the 18th century, the forest had to yield still further.

3. _Methods of Restriction in Forest Use._

All ordinances issued by the princes to regulate the management of their properties contain the prescription, that permission of the _Landesherr_ is necessary for clearings, and that abandoned fields growing up to wood are to be kept as woodland; this partly for timber needs, partly for considerations of the chase. Still, Frederick the Great in colonizing East Prussia, expressed himself to the effect that he cared more for men than for wood, and enjoined his officials to colonize especially the woods far from water, which entailed even more waste of wood than where means of transportation allowed at least partial marketing.

Improvident clearings proceeded even under his reign on the Frische Nehrung between Danzig and Pillau, and started the shifting sands of that peninsula.

In the absence of all knowledge as regards the extent of existing supplies or of the increment, and with poor means of transportation, at least local distress was imminent.

To stave off a threatening timber scarcity, regulation in the use of wood was attempted by the forest ordinances, even to the extent of forbidding the hanging out of green brush to designate a drinking hall, or the cutting of May trees,--similar to our crusade in the United States against the use of Christmas trees. A diameter limit to which trees might be permitted to be cut, was also frequently urged. Regulation of forest use did not confine itself to the princely properties alone, but, in the interest of the whole, the restrictions were extended to all owners. These restrictions were directed either to the practice in the exploitation of the forest or in the use of the material. In the latter direction the attempts at reducing the consumption of building timber are of special interest. Building inspectors were to approve building plans and inspect buildings to see that they were most economically constructed; that repairs were made promptly, to avoid the necessity of more extensive ones; that new buildings replacing old ones were not built higher than the old ones. In Saxony, as early as 1560, it was ordered that the whole house must be built of stone, while elsewhere, the building of stone base walls and the use of brick roofs instead of shingles was insisted upon.

Even the number of houses in any community was restricted. Fences were to be supplanted by hedges and ditches. Economies in charcoal burning, in potash manufacture for glass works, and in the turpentine industry were prescribed, and about 1600, the burning of potash for fertilizer was forbidden entirely; but these laws proved unavailing. Even in fuel-wood a saving was to be effected by using only the poorer woods and windfalls, by instituting public bake ovens (still in use in Westphalia), by improving stoves, restricting the number of bathing rooms, etc.

The consumption of fuelwood seems to have been enormous, for we find record of 200 cords used by one family in a year and of 1,200 cords or more used by the Court at Weimar during the same time.

The substitution of turf and coal for firewood was ordered in some sections in 1697 and again in 1777, but practically not until 1780 did coal come in as a substitute. Tanbark peeling was also forbidden, or only the use of bark of trees soon to be felled was allowed. For cooperage only the top-dry oak; for coffins only soft-wood, or, according to Joseph II of Austria, no wood, but black cloth was to be used. In some parts of the country the use of oak was restricted, even as early as 1562.

For regulating practices in the forest the restrictions often took only the general form of forbidding devastation, without specifying what that meant.

Then, besides establishing a diameter limit, and regulating pasture in order to protect young growth, excluding sheep and goats entirely, an attempt was made to secure at least orderly procedure in the fellings. Foresters were to designate what was to be cut even for firewood. Marking irons and hammers were employed for this purpose by the middle of the 15th century (usually two markings, by forester and by inspector to check). And this designation by officials extended even into the private forest, where finally no felling was allowed without previous permission and designation by a forester.

The use of the litter by the small farmers had grown to a large extent in these times and it was thought desirable to stop it, but this aid to the poor peasant was so necessary that only regulating the gathering of it could be insisted upon.

It must be understood that all these various attempts at securing a conservative forest use were by no means general but refer to circumscribed territory, and much of it was only paper legislation without securing actual practice.

4. _Development of Forest Policy._

With the beginning of the 18th century we find, besides these prescriptions against wasteful use, and ordinances regulating the management of the properties of the princes, definite forest policies in some sections, having in view forest preservation and improvement of forest conditions, and also means of providing wood at moderate prices.

Between the years 1515 and 1590, most of the German States had already enacted ordinances which had the force of general law exercising police functions over private forest property, although in Prussia this general legislation did not occur until 1720. The objects in view with this legislation were entirely of a material kind: the conservation of resources. Besides securing the rights of the _Landesherr_ to the chase, it was to secure a conservative use of the princely as well as private forests, since devastation of the latter would require the former to be drawn on extravagantly; it was to stave off a timber famine, and in certain localities to assure particularly the mining industry of their wood supplies. There were, however, concessions made to the privileged and influential classes of forest owners.