A Brief History of Forestry.. Fernow Bernhard Eduard
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
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