As stated, the German tribes which settled the country were herders and
hunters, who only gradually developed into farmers while the country was
being settled. At first, therefore, as far as the forest did not need to
give way to farm lands, its main use was in the exercise of the chase
and for pasture, and especially for the raising and fattening of hogs;
the number of hogs which could be driven into a forest serving as an
expression of the size of such a forest. Oak and beech furnishing the
mast were considered the preferable species. It is natural, therefore,
that, wood being plentiful and the common property of all, the first
regulation of forest use had reference to these, now minor benefits of
forest property, as for instance the prohibition of cutting mast trees,
which was enforced in early times. The first extensive regulation of
forest use came however, from the exercise of the royal right of the ban
and merely for the avowed purpose of protecting the chase.
Real forest management, however, did not exist, the _forestarii_
mentioned in these early times being nothing but policemen guarding the
hunting rights of the kings or other owners. The conception that wood on
the stump was of the same nature as other property and its removal theft
had not yet become established: “_quia non res possessa sed de ligno
agitur_” (wood not being a possessed thing), a conception which still
pervades the laws of modern times to some extent.
The necessity of clearing farm lands for the growing population
continued, even in the western, more densely populated sections, into
the 12th and 13th centuries. The cloisters were especially active in
colonizing and making farm land with the use of axe and fire, such
cloisters being often founded as mere land speculations. Squatters, as
with us, were a frequent class of colonists, and in eastern Prussia
continued even into the 17th and 18th centuries to appropriate forest
land without regard to property rights.
The disturbed ownership conditions, which we have traced, led also often
to wasteful slashing, especially in the western territory, while
colonization among the Slavs of the Eastern sections led to similar
results. In the 12th century, however, here and there appear the first
signs of greater necessity for regulating and restricting forest use in
the Mark forest, and for improvement in forest conditions with the
purpose of insuring wood supplies.
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.