A Brief History of Forestry. B. E. Fernow
of the Hessian forest service, a nobleman, v. Berlepsch.
Of the cameralists who helped to make forestry literature, six or seven deserve mention. These, men of education and polyhistors, were either at the head of affairs, or else professors at universities, where they included forestry as one of the branches of political economy.
The credit of the first really systematic presentation of forestry principles and rules, as developed at the time, belongs to Wilhelm Gottfried von Moser, a pupil of von Langen, who served in various principalities, and finally with the Prince of Taxis. In his Principles of Forest Economy, published in 1757, which for the first time brought out the economic importance of the subject, he discusses in two volumes divided into nine chapters the different branches of forestry.
A mining engineer, J. A. Cramer, came next with a very notable book, “Anleitung zum Forstwesen” (1766), which, although not as comprehensive as Moser’s, treats the subject of silviculture very well.
Equal in arrogance and opinionated self-satisfaction to any of the empiricists with whom he frequently crossed swords, was the Brunswick councillor, von Brocke, who, as an amateur, practising forestry on his own estate, developed the characteristic trait of the empiricists, namely, a profound belief in his own infallibility. He produced, besides many polemic writings, in which he charged the whole class of foresters with ignorance, laziness and dishonesty, a magnum opus in four volumes, entitled “True bases of the physical and experimental general science of forestry,” which is an olla podrida of small value.
Less original, but more fair and well informed, a typical representative of the cameralists, was J. F. Stahl, finally head of the forest administration of Württemberg, and at the same time lecturer on mathematics, natural history and forestry at the forest school of Solitude (Stuttgart). Although an amateur in the field of forestry, he was a good teacher and left many valuable and wise prescriptions evolved during his administration.
He compiled in four volumes a dictionary of forest, fish and game practice (Onomatologia forestalis-piscatoria-venatoria, 1772–1781) and founded the first forestry journal.
Since 1770, forestry courses had been given for the cameralists at most of the German universities, and many of the professors prepared textbooks for the purpose. At least three of these professors deserve mention, Beckman, Jung and Trunk.
The first, J. Beckman, professor of political economy at Göttingen, one of the most noted cameralists, was author of a work in forty-five volumes on the Principles of German Agriculture (1769), in which he devotes sixty-one pages to forestry, giving a complete system of forestry, with extracts from all known forestry writings.
J. H. Jung, who gave a special course on forestry at the Kameralschule of Lautern, published a textbook in 1781 in which forest botany was well treated.
J. J. Trunk, who was Oberforstmeister in Austria, as well as professor at Freiburg, was the most prominent of the three, and wrote a comprehensive work full of practical sense (Neues vollständiges Forstlehrbuch oder systematische Grundsätze des Forstrechtes, der Forstpolizei und Forstökonomie, nebst Anhang von ausländischen Holzarten, von Torf und Steinkohlen, 1789).
While at first the ephemeral writings, especially the polemic ones of the empiricists, found room in literary and cameralistic magazines, the need of a professional journal first found expression in 1763, in Stahl’s Allgemeines ökonomisches Forstmagazin, which ran into twelve volumes, and contains many articles important to the history of forestry, and is especially rich in its references to foreign literature.
Two continuations of the magazine under different editorships were of less value. But von Moser’s Forstarchiv, running from 1788 to 1807 with its thirty volumes, is an authority and a historical source of the first rank.
A very characteristic literature of the last half of the 18th century consisted in forest calendars in which advice as to monthly and seasonal procedures in the forest were given, Beckman and Zanthier being among the authors.
III. Development in the Nineteenth Century.
The last hundred years or so has seen in Germany the development of fully established forest policies and the complete organization of stable forest administrations, based upon thorough and careful recognition of the principles of forest management and intensive application of silvicultural methods.
1. Changes in Property Conditions.
The change in forest treatment from that prevailing during the previous period was mainly due to the change in property conditions, and especially to the establishment of state forests. This change was largely the result of the revolutionary movements at the beginning of the new century which brought about changes in state organizations. In Prussia, the princely forest property had been declared state domain in 1713, but elsewhere, the public domain had been considered the property of the princes in their capacity as head of the country, as domanium, outside of their personal private property (Chatullgüter). The income from this domanium was in part liable to be applied to the expenses of the court and of the administration of the realm, to some extent alleviating the burdens of taxation. This property arose from a variety of relations which have been discussed at length in the foregoing chapters. It was derived mainly from feudal properties, fiefs of vassalage and fiefs of official position, secularized church property and other forfeited property, division of mark forests, and from allodial possessions of the family. Gradually, by agreement with the landed estates, it was understood that this property could not be disposed of or dissipated by the prince, and was inherited by the eldest son together with the princely dignity, being an attribute of his position in the state. In the reconstruction period of 1806 to 1815, during and after the Napoleonic wars, many of the small princes lost their seigniorage (Landeshoheit ipso jure), and with the loss of the princely dignity, the obligation of carrying the expense of court and administration naturally falling away, these properties became in most cases purely individual property of the former princes.
Not, however, until the revolutionary movements of 1848 and even later, was this divorce of the state idea from that of the person of the prince everywhere accomplished, nor was it carried through without many bickerings and quarrels between the princes and the representatives of the people, who claimed this domanium for the state. In the larger states, all this domanial property was finally declared state lands, while in the smaller principalities a partition of the land between the princes and the state took place, or else a relation was established by which a part of the revenue resulting from the state lands was secured to the princes.
An increase of the State’s property came also during the first decade of the century through the abolishment of cloisters and secularization of church property generally, the lands of both Protestant and Catholic church institutions being taken by the State.
Curiously enough, at the same time that the idea of state forest was being realized, the changes in economic thought which brought the principle of individualism to the fore gave rise to a movement to sell the state properties. This movement was inspired by French doctrines, whose influence was at the time very strong, by the teachings of Adam Smith who held that the state is not fit to conduct business, and by the hope that in private ownership an improvement in forest conditions would be more readily realized. These ideas by themselves would, probably, not have led to the adoption of a policy of sale if it had not been for the need for cash which, as a result of the French wars, was felt everywhere during the first years of the decade. The sale of this property seemed to provide a ready means for States to secure funds.
In Prussia, after the collapse of 1806, this measure was widely discussed, and eventually, in 1810 to 1813, repeatedly instructions for the sale of state forest property were issued. There were to be excluded from such sales only large complexes of forest, those on the sea coast, sand dunes and river fronts, where the protection of the forest cover was needed, and those