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.