A Brief History of Forestry.: In Europe, the United States and Other CountriesFernow, B. E. (Bernhard Eduard)
History
A Brief History of Forestry.: In Europe, the United States and Other Countries
Fernow, B. E. (Bernhard Eduard)
Forests and forestry -- History
Another method of increasing municipal properties was by exchange of
territory for the rights of user. Efforts to get rid of these rights,
which grew up as described and to prevent their extension were
instituted much earlier than in Germany, Philip of Valois expressly
forbidding such extension as early as 1346. Nevertheless they continued
to grow so that, by the middle of the 18th century, they were as general
and afforded as great a hindrance to forest management, as in Germany.
The ordinance of 1669 also provided for the extinction of these rights,
apparently without much success, and the troublesome times after 1789
increased their number. Only when the orderly regime following the reign
of Napoleon gave rise to the Code Forestier (1827), was a systematic
attempt for their extinguishment by the cession of territory and cash
payment begun, and by this time the extinction may be considered
practically concluded, at least for the state and communal property.
Private property, not seignorial, was but little developed before the
16th century; after that the frequent sales by the kings and barons gave
rise to small forest owners, so that, by 1789, over 10 million acres
were in such possession. During the 19th century this grew by purchase,
by cessions, and by reforestation of waste lands to double that amount,
not less than two million acres being added by the latter cause alone,
while some decrease came from clearings.
In 1905, private holdings comprised 15 million acres or 65 per cent. of
the total; the communal and institutional forests 4.8 million acres or
21 per cent., leaving for State forest 2.9 million acres, or a little
over 12 per cent. of the total of 22.7 million acres. Twenty-two per
cent. of state and communal property is, however, waste land, and such
areas in private hands may be six times as large; there being altogether
between 14 and 15 million acres of waste lands.
2. _Development of Forest Administration._
In the earlier times, and, indeed, into the 18th century, the most
important use of the forest was in the mast from oak and beech for the
pigs and pasture for the cattle, besides firewood, for which mostly the
soft woods were used. This was given free from the royal domain, and the
administration consisted mainly in regulating this use. The main
incentive for the regulation of forest use on the part of the king were
the interests of the chase.
Towards the end of the ninth century, special forest officers,
_forestarii_, are mentioned in Charlemagne’s celebrated _capitularium_,
which describes in detail the administration of the public domains.
These were, to be sure, only lower rank officials, working under mayors,
intendants and the count (_comes_), who was the administrator and soon
independent arbiter of the royal domain as well as of the administration
of justice in general. His office early became hereditary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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