SUPPLIES OF TIMBER FBOM ABROAD. 181 



scarcely producing one-seventh part of the whole. The Finnish 

 Government owns nine-tenths of these northern forests, which are, 

 practically speaking, still untouched ; the prices which have 

 hitherto been obtainable in consuming markets, in conjunction with 

 the terms demanded by the State for working the forests, offering 

 no inducements to capitalists to embark in the business. North 

 and north-west of Lake Ladoga, the Finnish State also owns large 

 ■unworkcd tracts of forests, where miUions of trees are actually at 

 the present moment rotting for want of buyers. If the projected 

 canal from Wyborg to Lake Ladoga be carried out at an early date, 

 the forests in question will be brought within the reach of pro- 

 fitable commercial enterprise, and may be expected to supple- 

 ment the Swedish supplies by the time the latter are showing 

 signs of exhaustion. Most of the Ladoga wood is of very fair 

 average quality, and superior to that on the north-west coast of 

 Finland. 



From Eussia proper, we receive a large (piautity of both spruce 

 and Scots fir from St. Petersburg and a few small ports on the 

 south side of the Gulf of Finland ; but as there is a considerable 

 and increasing local demand, any further large export developnieut 

 is only to be anticipated when prices rise sufQciently to allow of the 

 railway being resorted to more largely than is at present the case, 

 to get the wood to the coast. A yearly average of about 350,000 

 loads of sawn wood is all that is despatched from the district 

 indicated, of which approximatively 275,000 loads come to this 

 country. A deterioration in the quality of the redwood (Scots fir) 

 received from St. Petersburg has been observable during the last 

 decade, caused partly by a larger proportion of the best goods being 

 retained at home, and partly by a scarcity of prime trees in the 

 localities called over. 



The Baltic provinces to the south of the Finnish Gulf, to wit 

 the districts of Eiga, Libau, Windan, etc., supply us with the bullc 

 of our fir railway sleepers, while Eiga is the largest emporium for 

 sawn whitewood (spruce) in Europe. The annual value of the 

 timber export trade of Eiga is about 1\ million pounds. Great 

 Britain receives annually from Eiga about 450,000 loads of sawn, 

 split, and hewn wood on an average. The price at which the bulk 

 of this timber has been delivered for the past two or three seasons 

 has put competition to the east coast of Britain out of the question, 

 and has been the means of dragging down the price of whitewood 

 (spruce) of Scandinavia and Finland to an absolutely unremunera- 

 tive point. The cubic contents of the timber leaving the Eiga 

 district is already so great, that, although it has an area of between 

 five and six million acres to look to for its supply, and the period 



