Although all this supervision was probably more or less lax, the
possibility of more general and incisive influence was increasing
because the personnel to whom such supervision could be intrusted was at
last coming into existence.
The men in whose hands at the beginning of the 18th century lay the task
of developing and executing forest policies and of developing forestry
practice came from two very different classes. The work in the woods
fell naturally to the share of the huntsmen and forest guards, who by
their practical life in the woods had secured some wood lore and
developed some technical detail upon empiric basis. These so-called
_holzgerechte Jaeger_ (woodcrafty hunters) prepared for their duties by
placing themselves under the direction of an established huntsman, who
taught them what he knew about the rules of the chase, while by
questioning woodchoppers, colliers, etc., and by their own observation
the knowledge of woodcraft was acquired.
At the head of affairs stood the so-called _cameralists_ or chamber
officials, men who had prepared themselves by the study of philosophy,
law, diplomacy and political economy for the positions of directors of
finance and State administration. Rather ignorant of natural science,
and without practical forestry knowledge, their efforts were not always
well directed. They deserve credit, however, for having collected into
encyclopædic volumes the empiric knowledge of the practitioners or
Holzgerechten, and for having elaborated it more or less successfully.
In this work they were joined by some of the professors of cameralia and
law at the universities.
By the middle of the 18th century the hunters had so far grown in
knowledge and education as to be able to produce their knowledge in
books of their own. Quite a literature developed full of acrimonious
warfare of opinions, as is the rule where empiricism rules supreme.
Notable progress, however, came only when hunting was placed in the
background and more or less divorced from forest work.