Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/503

Rh dram-shop; more than this I never dared to give, for fear of causing an inroad of beggars upon the village.

An imperial forester, with one or more deputies in each village of his district, has complete control of all the woodland in his circle. By him it is decided how much wood shall be cut each year for the use of the commune or corporation, and without his consent not a stick can be cut in any forest of his district. The commune of E—— owns fifteen hundred and thirty-eight acres of land, which has, since the settlement of the village many generations ago, been planted in forest trees. None of this forest-land has ever been stripped of its trees and devoted to agriculture, with the exception of a small part, which, on account of its position near a much-traveled road, served during the Thirty Years' war as a refuge and place of ambush for brigands and highway robbers. This was, toward the end of the great war, cleared and the land divided among the corporators. The forest-land belonging to E—— is divided into forty parts, one of which may be cleared each year. On account of the large amount of extra labor caused by the keeping up of nurseries, but few villages plant the land cleared by them each year, most of them allowing the natural growth to spring up on the cut portions. Although the natural growth of wood on which E—— depends for its supply does away with the need for a large nursery, the corporators are yet compelled to keep up a small one, in order to plant high, wind-swept ridges where no seed has lodged. This nursery, or Baumschule as it is called, is planted and kept up by the labor of all the corporators. As a general thing, only two days out of the year are spent by each citizen at commune work. In the fall a meeting of the corporators is called, and it is then decided when and how much wood shall be cut. The imperial forester is at once notified, and, in company with the village forester, goes through the part which is to be cut that year and marks all trees under an inch in diameter except those which, from their fine form or good situation, seem likely to make first-rate timber. The whole of the woodland to be cut is then divided into sixty-six parts, and each corporator receives a part, allotted by chance, on which he at once goes to work and clears off the brush and marked trees. "When this has been accomplished throughout the whole tract, the imperial forester is again called, and goes through the forest, marking all trees not large enough for building timber, and which are so warped, decayed, or top-killed as to be unlikely to grow into good timber. These trees are then divided as before, and each citizen cuts and carries away his share. Then, for the third and last time, the forester goes through the tract, and marks all the large trees which seem to be hollow-hearted or to have stopped growing. These are then divided and cut like the rest, with the exceptions that the oaks are first stripped of their bark to be sold to tanners for the benefit of the commune, and that the teacher and minister get none of this large wood because, the peasants say that, when a