The great change which led to improved conditions, during the first half
of the century, was pre-eminently due to the knowledge and intelligence
of a group of men, six in number, competent foresters, who combined the
high grade education of the Cameralists with the practitioners’
knowledge: Hartig, Cotta, Hundeshagen, Koenig, Pfeil and Heyer. These
men built, to be sure, on the shoulders of their precursors of the
century in which they were born, but, being placed in authoritative
positions, found better opportunities for putting their teachings into
practice.
The first two mentioned were older than the rest, and are usually
described as the “fathers of modern forestry.” Born about a year apart,
both educated at universities, they excelled in both scientific and
practical directions.
_Georg Ludwig Hartig_ (1764-1837), studied at the University of Giessen
and, after having served in various functions in various parts of
Southern Germany, became, in 1811, head of the Prussian forest
administration. He was equally eminent as a practical man and organizer,
as a writer, and as a teacher. In literary direction his work lay not so
much in developing new ideas as in formulating clearly the known ones,
as evidenced in his celebrated “General Rules” in silviculture.
Not less than thirty separate publications attest his assiduity. Among
them stands pre-eminent “_Anweisung zur Holzzucht für Foerster_” (1791;
8th edition, 1818). As a teacher he began his work by establishing a
masterschool (1789-1791) at Hungen, transferred to Stuttgart in 1807;
and afterwards, as head of the Prussian forest administration, he
lectured at the University of Berlin, continuing his lectures there,
even after the forestry school at Eberswalde had been established, until
his death.
He may be considered as having established on a firm basis the forest
administration of Prussia; and many of the things he instituted still
prevail. In organizing the service, he introduced fixed salaries, he
relieved the foresters from financial responsibilities, transferring all
handling of money to a separate set of officials, whereby the temptation
to fraudulent practice of graft was removed, and he issued instructions
for the different grades of foresters; and every part of this work was
all his own. In regulating the forest area of the state he developed the
volume allotment method, which, however, proved too cumbersome to be
readily applied to large areas. Toward the end of his life, his work was
not entirely successful, and he lost prestige in his later years.
_Heinrich von Cotta_ (1763-1844) studied at the University of Jena, and
afterwards practiced in Thuringia, where he established a master school
at Zillbach (1795). In 1811, he was called to Saxony, as director of
forest surveys, whither he also transferred his school, at Tharandt,
which in 1816 was made a state institution and is still flourishing. In
that year he was made the director of the Bureau of Forest Management.
Like Hartig, he was eminent in the three directions of practical,
literary, and educational work, but he excelled Hartig in originality,
developing new principles and thought. Being a good plant-physiologist
and observer of nature, he developed new ideas in silviculture,
especially with reference to methods of thinning, and his “_Anweisung
zum Waldbau_,” written in the simplest, clearest and most forceful
manner, forms a classic worthy of study to this day. In the field of
forest management he became the inventor of the area allotment method
and the originator of the highly developed Saxon forest management. As
a teacher he excelled in clearness, exposition, wealth of ideas and
geniality.
Of an entirely different stamp was the third of the great masters,
_Johann Christian Hundeshagen_ (1783-1834), who having studied in
Heidelberg, became after some years of practice, professor of forestry
at Tuebingen, in 1817, and at Giessen, 1825. He was a representative of
the theoretical or philosophical side of forestry, being highly
cultivated and imbued with the spirit of science. His bent was to
systematize the knowledge in existence and extend it by means of exact
experiments. In forest organization, he invented the well known formula
method or “rational method” of regulating felling budgets and became
also one of the founders of Forest Statics (1826) which he called “the
doctrine of measuring forestal forces,” being thus the forerunner of
modern scientific forestry.
The fourth of the group, _Gottlob König_ (1776-1849), was a practitioner
without a university education, who had enjoyed the teaching and
influence of Cotta whom he succeeded in Eisenach as the head of the
ducal forest administration. He also founded here a private forest
school, which, in 1830, became a state institution, and is still in
existence. König became noted by his contributions to the scientific,
especially the mathematical side of forestry, developing forest
mensuration and statics. In this latter branch he was the forerunner of
Pressler and of the modern school of finance. In his “_Anleitung zur
Holztaxation_” (1813) he gives a complete account of forest mensuration
and in the part devoted to forest valuation he develops the first soil
rent formula and the methods of determining the cost value of stands.
His “Forest Mathematics” (1835) in which he introduces factors of form
and many other new ideas was an original contribution to science.
Very different in character from these four leaders was the aggressive,
sharp-witted _Friedrich Wilhelm Leopold Pfeil_ (1783-1859), who, without
a university education, and in spite of his poor knowledge of
mathematics and natural history, advanced himself by native wit and
genius. After a brief period of employment in private service, in the
province of Silesia, he accepted the position of professor of forestry
at the Berlin University, in 1821, in connection with Hartig, with whom,
however, he was at sword’s point. It was at his instigation, with the
assistance of von Humboldt, that the school was transferred, in 1830, to
Eberswalde, Pfeil becoming its director.
While Hartig was a generalizer, Pfeil was an individualizer, free from
dogma, and most suggestive; a free lance and a fighter. Critical in the
extreme and prolific in his literary work, he domineered the forestry
literature of the day by means of his _Kritische Blaetter_, a journal of
much import and merit.
The youngest of the group, _Karl Heyer_ (1797-1856), a thoroughly
educated man, combined the professorial position in the University of
Giessen (1835) with practical management of a forest district, but in
1834 abandoned the latter in order to devote himself entirely to
literary work. He was one of the clearest and most systematic
expounders, and both his _Waldbau_ (silviculture, 1854) and his
_Waldertragsregelung_ (forest organization, 1841) are classics. The
last, fifth edition of the Waldbau, appearing in 1906 in two volumes,
has been brought up to date by Professor Hess. He devised one of the
most rational methods of forest organization, and, imbued with the
necessity of basing forest management on exact scientific inquiry,
instead of on empiricism alone, he formulated instructions for forest
static investigations, a subject which his son, Gustav Heyer, elaborated
into a science.