Essay About Local Measurement Systems And Scientific Forestry

Early Modern Time Period European
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In the early modern time period European states most often viewed their forests as a source of timber and revenue, taking what they pleased and fearing no consequences. The forests were measured for annual revenue yield based on timber production without taking many other factors into regard. Eventually, the idea to “create, through careful seeding, planting and cutting a forest that was easier for state forester to count, manipulate, measure and asses” (Scott, 1998 pg. 15) blossomed all over Europe and the U.S.. When the Germans put their scientific forestry to the test they cleared out all of the brush in the forest and carefully seeded and planted in rows for easy counting and manipulation, often times cutting out many species’ homes. Over time the more advanced maps of these forests highlighted the monstrous revenue increase, giving the map readers a great overview of the forest as a whole. The new scientific forests made it much easier to monitor and maintain the forests and opened up a new job market for lots of people, even inexperienced ones. Eventually, after about a century of scientific forestry, when the second generation came around to be planted it became quite apparent that something was wrong. Scott states that “many of the pure stands grew excellently in the first generation but already showed an amazing retrogression in the second generation” (Scott, 1998 pg. 20). It was soon after learned that the clearing of the brush and animal populations caused a huge decrease in usable soil, making it very difficult to plant. To resolve this issue German scientists decided to artificially place new species into the forest over time to restore order. This of course didn’t return the forest to normal, but it did create a much more sustainable environment for the trees and a much better overall ecosystem than the original scientific forests. Eventually, scientific forestry was no longer used due to the long-term inefficiency. The measurements used to calculate the sustainable yield of revenue in a scientific forest often varied from nation to nation, leading to problems with trade.  Local measurement systems worked fairly well within individual areas or communities, but in the long run “the illegibility of local measurements was more than an administrative headache for the monarchy… without comparable units of measurement, it was difficult if not impossible to monitor markets, to compare regional prices for basic commodities, or to