WHEN AFFOKKSTATION COMES. T27 



and flooring timbers reciuired in Great Britain ; Sweden and 

 Finland little or nothing ; Russia not a great deal. Norway 

 still supplies a considerable quantity; Sweden, right up to 

 the Arctic circle, sends us large supplies ; Finland, which as 

 a country has its surface almost entirely covered either with 

 woods or water, is coming more and more into the field ; 

 whilst Russia, that country that is almost a continent, and only 

 now waking up to its own possibilities, is already taking 

 the lead, and is now formulating development schemes that 

 will, if carried out, in course of time enable her to swamp 

 all the other Baltic countries by her enormous exports. A 

 commission of engineers in St Petersburg has been appointed 

 to design and carry out new canals to open up virgin forests ; 

 many new railway lines are also under consideration ; 

 and a service of commercial agents is being arranged for, 

 whose duty it will be to visit all timber-importing countries 

 to ascertain their wants and to make suggestions to the 

 Government for their fulfilment. That there is a vast field 

 for development will be apparent when it is stated that 

 besides 201,400,000 acres of privately-owned forests, there 

 are 228,973,000 acres of State-owned forests in European 

 Russia, and in addition there are 192,660,000 acres surveyed 

 in Asiatic Russia, besides 465,000,000 acres unsurveyed, also 

 in the Asiatic provinces. Professor Somerville, the professor of 

 rural economy at Oxford, an expert in forestry, at the meeting 

 of the British Association in Winnipeg this year, said, in regard 

 to the future supply of wood, that Russia was reducing her 

 exports ; but the most recent Consular reports do not bear 

 this out, the annual export of timber since 1903 having 

 increased in value from four to six million pounds sterling. In 

 the same report we are informed that the re-afforestation of the 

 State lands more than compensated for the quantity annually 

 cut down. We are also told that the wooded provinces in 

 the Consular district of St Petersburg alone cover an area 

 equal to three times the area of great Britain. The exports 

 from St Petersburg are this year higher than those of 1908 by 

 13,000 standards of 165 cubic feet each. Freights are cheap 

 from Russia, and there is no lower paid labourer in the 

 civilised world than the Russian. With these facts before us, 

 I think you will agree with me that if there is to be a timber 

 famine Russia will not be to blame. 



