Читать книгу A Brief History of Forestry - B. E. Fernow - Страница 18

All ordinances issued by the princes to regulate the management of their properties contain the prescription, that permission of the Landesherr is necessary for clearings, and that abandoned fields growing up to wood are to be kept as woodland; this partly for timber needs, partly for considerations of the chase. Still, Frederick the Great in colonizing East Prussia, expressed himself to the effect that he cared more for men than for wood, and enjoined his officials to colonize especially the woods far from water, which entailed even more waste of wood than where means of transportation allowed at least partial marketing.

Improvident clearings proceeded even under his reign on the Frische Nehrung between Danzig and Pillau, and started the shifting sands of that peninsula.

In the absence of all knowledge as regards the extent of existing supplies or of the increment, and with poor means of transportation, at least local distress was imminent.

To stave off a threatening timber scarcity, regulation in the use of wood was attempted by the forest ordinances, even to the extent of forbidding the hanging out of green brush to designate a drinking hall, or the cutting of May trees—similar to our crusade in the United States against the use of Christmas trees. A diameter limit to which trees might be permitted to be cut, was also frequently urged. Regulation of forest use did not confine itself to the princely properties alone, but, in the interest of the whole, the restrictions were extended to all owners. These restrictions were directed either to the practice in the exploitation of the forest or in the use of the material. In the latter direction the attempts at reducing the consumption of building timber are of special interest. Building inspectors were to approve building plans and inspect buildings to see that they were most economically constructed; that repairs were made promptly, to avoid the necessity of more extensive ones; that new buildings replacing old ones were not built higher than the old ones. In Saxony, as early as 1560, it was ordered that the whole house must be built of stone, while elsewhere, the building of stone base walls and the use of brick roofs instead of shingles was insisted upon.

Even the number of houses in any community was restricted. Fences were to be supplanted by hedges and ditches. Economies in charcoal burning, in potash manufacture for glass works, and in the turpentine industry were prescribed, and about 1600, the burning of potash for fertilizer was forbidden entirely; but these laws proved unavailing. Even in fuel-wood a saving was to be effected by using only the poorer woods and windfalls, by instituting public bake ovens (still in use in Westphalia), by improving stoves, restricting the number of bathing rooms, etc.

The consumption of fuelwood seems to have been enormous, for we find record of 200 cords used by one family in a year and of 1,200 cords or more used by the Court at Weimar during the same time.

The substitution of turf and coal for firewood was ordered in some sections in 1697 and again in 1777, but practically not until 1780 did coal come in as a substitute. Tanbark peeling was also forbidden, or only the use of bark of trees soon to be felled was allowed. For cooperage only the top-dry oak; for coffins only soft-wood, or, according to Joseph II of Austria, no wood, but black cloth was to be used. In some parts of the country the use of oak was restricted, even as early as 1562.

For regulating practices in the forest the restrictions often took only the general form of forbidding devastation, without specifying what that meant.

Then, besides establishing a diameter limit, and regulating pasture in order to protect young growth, excluding sheep and goats entirely, an attempt was made to secure at least orderly procedure in the fellings. Foresters were to designate what was to be cut even for firewood. Marking irons and hammers were employed for this purpose by the middle of the 15th century (usually two markings, by forester and by inspector to check). And this designation by officials extended even into the private forest, where finally no felling was allowed without previous permission and designation by a forester.

The use of the litter by the small farmers had grown to a large extent in these times and it was thought desirable to stop it, but this aid to the poor peasant was so necessary that only regulating the gathering of it could be insisted upon.

It must be understood that all these various attempts at securing a conservative forest use were by no means general but refer to circumscribed territory, and much of it was only paper legislation without securing actual practice.