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The Vogelsberg is an old woodland. About the year 700, in the time of Bonifatius, our region was called Buchonia – wooded hilly country. The monk Eigil of Fulda wrote about enormous trees. One thousand years later there was not much left of this forest. The first new settlers cleared the woods after settling down, built half-timbered houses, used wood for heating, charcoal burners burnt charcoal for iron smelting and the cattle cropped the young shoots of little growing trees.
Just like a park: beech trees in the Oberwald.
Only since the 18th century we can speak of a planned specific forestry in the Vogelsberg. As they wanted to retimber the damaged forest as quickly as possible, they planted trees like spruce, pine and larch. This was the origin of our present large coniferous forest. Today they try to reduce these monocultures by planting deciduous trees and to get closer to the original forest in the Vogelsberg. 40% of the Vogelsberg and the northern Wetterau are covered with wood which is 10% more than the average of total Germany.
Decidous-coniferous-mixed.
34% of the coniferous trees are spruces. 46% of the forest land are deciduous trees, 32% of it are beech trees and only 4% are oak trees.
Average time from planting till crop of trees:
Oak 180 years
Beech 140 years
Spruce 100 years
Pine 140 years
The age of the deciduous trees in the Vogelsberg is quite normal, the age of the conifers is rather unfavourable. 48% are 1 – 40 years, 15% are 41 – 80 years, 12% are more than 80 years old. 81% of the forest in the Vogelsberg are growing in fresh and sound sites.
By the way: Nearly the whole Rhine-Main-Area and people in the Vogelsberg buy their Christmas trees in the Vogelsberg. When retimbering the forest the small trees are planted so densely that they can be sold as Christmas trees only a few years later.
(Translated from German by Heidi M. Schneider)
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