Similar to the experiences of France, the disturbances in property conditions, which implied instantaneous loss by the people of all rights of user in the State property as well as removal of all restrictions from private and communal properties, led to wholesale depredations from the State domain, and to widespread deforestation and devastation, an area of a million acres of burnt waste near Kofu, west of Tokyo, testifying to the recklessness of these times. Without any force to guard property rights, stealing on an extensive scale, similar to past experiences in the United States, with the accompanying wastefulness, became the order of the day, and is even now not uncommon. A first provisional administration of State forests was inaugurated, and a forest reconnaissance ordered in 1875 in order to secure insight into the mixed-up property relations, and restore to their rightful owners such portions as had been wrongly taken by the State. In 1878, the State forests were placed under a special bureau organized by Matsuno, who had studied forestry in Germany (Eberswalde) for five years. But it was not academic knowledge that was needed in the situation; it was necessary first to mould public opinion in order to secure means for administrative measures. This he set himself to do through public addresses and pamphlets, and by organizing a society of friends of forest culture, and finally, in 1882, by establishing an experiment station at Nishigahara, and, a year later, a dendrological school, which four years later was combined with the agricultural school at Komaba; five years later both were joined to the University of Tokyo. With the transfer of the forestry bureau to the Department of Agriculture and Commerce in 1881, and a reorganization in 1886, a new era seemed to be promised, yet a substantial progress in organized forest management of the State property does not seem to have been made for another decade at least, the slow progress being largely due to lack of personnel and the continuance of mixed property conditions, which involved not only uncertainty of boundaries, but also mixed ownerships. Although this last trouble, namely of mixed ownership by State and private individuals, had been recognized as inimical to good management, it was deliberately increased by the law of 1878 in a curious way, reviving an old custom, namely by permitting private individuals to plant up clearings in the State forests; in this way, these individuals secured a certain percentage, usually 20 per cent., of the eventual profits arising from the results. Some 200,000 acres were planted under this arrangement. To remove the boundary difficulty, a survey of the boundaries of State property and adjustment of property rights, as well as segregation of the State lands to be disposed of, namely small lots and others not needed, was ordered in 1890.