112 THE FOREST QUESTION IN BUSSIA. [Dec. 



of lessening or preventing drought their agricultural importance is 

 hio-h. Yet Paissia has gone on intensifying her climatic disadvantages, 

 doino- injury to her crops, and emptying her watercourses, simply 

 because she has not had the presence of mind and the forethought to 

 formulate a ukase on the subject. 



But the end of all this bad husbandry seems now near. The 

 question has been considered by the Imperial Council, and the result- 

 ing decisions will in all probability take the form in which they have 

 been drawn up by M. Ostrovsky. The Government proposals not only 

 aim at preventing forests from being cut down unnecessarily, but also 

 include a scheme for the encouragement of arboriculture on a large 

 scale. Forests are divided into two categories, a distinction being 

 made between those which have special functions of usefulness, and 

 those which are worth preserving on general grounds of economical 

 benefit to the country at large. On the one hand, protection will be 

 given to forests — indeed, to any kinds of vegetation — which hinder 

 the spread of shifting sands from the banks of the sea or of navigable 

 rivers to towns, settlements, or roads : on the other, to forests, the 

 removal of which would be likely to lead to the destruction 

 of the banks of watercourses. In these cases effect will be given to 

 the law by the zemstvos, or district assemblies. The supervision of 

 private forests will be exercised by the Minister of Domains and 

 Ways, through his officials ; a general power being given to the 

 local district authorities to interfere where State interests seem 

 threatened by the action of individuals. The problem of promoting 

 arboriculture is somewhat different. For any effective change in 

 climatic conditions it is calculated that at least eight per cent, of a 

 given territory should consist of forest. In the South of Eussia, in 

 the region of the Steppes, scarcely more than half this percentage is 

 found in an area of above ninety dessiatines. To give this part of 

 the country, therefore, the climatic advantages of the centre and 

 northern governments would involve the creation of some hundred 

 thousands of dessiatines of forest land, and, as tree planting costs 

 about 75 roubles per dessiatine, the work, if done thoroughly, would 

 involve an expenditure of something like two millions of roubles. 

 The Government have really no intention to do anything so Quixotic. 

 There will be no attempt to make trees spring up from the salt 

 marshes, or village communes start into being where there is now 

 nothing but shifting sand. Money will be spent liberally, but not 

 lavishly, where there is a fair prospect of retaining valuable land by 

 means of judicious arboriculture. "When finances permit some purely 

 experimental tree planting may be indulged in, but only in the 

 agricultural territories. Pressure will also be brought to bear upon 

 landed proprietors to make them comply with already existing laws. 



