On the whole, property conditions developed not unsimilarly to those of
Germany. There were freemen and serfs to start with, developing into
barons, peasants, burghers; there were ban forests, royal domain,
forests of the mark, and private properties; rights of user or
servitudes and all the methods and conditions that were developed in
other parts of Europe are also found here, only perhaps differing in
time and rate of progress in their development.
As a result of gradual changes, the present distribution of property
resulted, in which the State ownership is comparatively small, namely,
in Austria proper not more than 7.3% (with 2.8 million acres of which
nearly one-third is unproductive land), while private ownership
represents over 58.6%. Of this, 34% is in large landed estates, among
which those of the princes of Liechtenstein and of Schwarzenberg with
round 350,000 acres and 290,000 acres respectively are the largest; and
25 others with from 50,000 to 230,000 acres may be named. By the middle
of the 19th century, at least 75% of the forest area was in large
compact properties, a guarantee for the possibility of forest
management; the industrial development of the last decade has, however,
led to considerable exploitation. In upper and lower Austria and in the
Alpine regions small private ownership prevails. The communal forest
comprises 13%, entailed forest 8%, and the rest belongs to church and
other institutions. These so-called _Fondsforste_ are in part under
government administration.