316 FOEESTS OF RUSSIA. 



to a minimumj the governments wisely persevere in encouraging 

 this industry. The exportation of sawn lumber from Trieste is 

 large, and in fact the Turkish and Egyptian markets are in great 

 part supphed from.this source.* 



Forests of Russia. 



Russia, which we habitually consider as substantially a forest 

 country — which has in fact a large proportion of woodland — is 

 beginning to suffer seriously for want of wood. Jourdier ob- 

 serves : " Instead of a vast territory with immense forests, which 

 we expect to meet, one sees only scattered groves thinned by the 

 wind or by the axe of the inoujih, grounds cut over and more or 

 less recently cleared for cultivation. There is probably not a 

 single district in Russia which has not to deplore the ravages of 

 man or of fire, those two great enemies of Muscovite sylviculture. 

 This is so true, that clear-sighted men already foresee a crisis 

 which will become terrible, unless the discovery of great deposits 

 of some new combustible, as pit-coal or anthracite, shall diminish 

 Its evils." f 



* For information respecting the forests of Germany, as well as other Euro- 

 pean countries, see, besides the works already cited, the very valuable Manu- 

 ale d'Arte For estate of Siemoni, 2d edizione, Firenze, 1873. 



f Clave, J^tudes sur VEconomie Forestiere, p. 261. Clave adds (p. 262) : 

 " The Russian forests are very unequally distributed through the territory of 

 this vast empire. In the north they form immense masses, and cover whole 

 provinces, while in the south they are so completely wanting that the inhabit- 

 ants have no other fuel than straw, dung, rushes, and heath," .... "At 

 Moscow, firewood costs thirty per cent, more than at Paris, while, at the dis- 

 tance of a few leagues, it sells for a tenth of that price." 



This state of things is partly due to the want of facilities of transportation, 

 and some parts of the United States are in a similar condition. During a 

 severe winter, ten or twelve years ago, the sudden freezing of the canals and 

 rivers, before a large American town had received its winter supply of fuel, 

 occasioned an enormous rise in the price of wood and coal, and the poor suf- 

 fered severely for want of it. "Within a few hours of the city were large 

 forests and an abundant stock of firewood felled and prepared for burning. 

 This might easUy have been carried to town by the railroads which passed 

 through the woods ; but the managers of the roads refused to receive it aa 

 freight, because a rival market for wood might raise the price of the fuel 

 required for their locomotives. Truly, our railways " want a master." 



Hohenstein, who was long professionally employed as a forester in Russia, 

 describes the consequences of the general war upon the woods in that country 

 as already most disastrous, and as threatening still more ruinous evils. The 



