THE FOREST RESOURCES OF THE WORLD. 21 



WOOD PRICES. 



In the yearbooks of the Department of the Treasury for 1898 and 

 1900 are given stumpage prices. Thus, in 1895, in the remote 

 northern government of Archangels, 1 cubic foot of pine timber on 

 the stump was worth 2.7 cents; in 1898, 3.7 cents; in 1895 spruce 

 was selling for 1.9 cents, and in 1898 for 2.1 cents; pine cord wood 

 was worth on the stump 18 cents per cord. In another northern 

 and remote government, Olonezk, timber on the stump was worth 

 3.5 cents per cubic foot for pine and 2 cents for spruce. In the 

 government of St. Petersburg the stumpage price was 3.7 cents for 

 pine and 2.2 cents for spruce. 



In the central governments the stumpage prices were, of course, 

 much higher. Thus, in the government of Moscow the stumpage 

 price for firewood was given in 1898 as $1.60 per cord for pine wood, 

 $1.21 per cord for spruce, $1.16 per cord for oak, $1.70 per cord for 

 birch wood, and 33 cents for all other species; saw-log timber in the 

 same year was worth 6 cents per cubic foot for pine, 3.7 cents for 

 spruce, 2.5 for all other species. In the government of Petrokovsk 

 firewood was selling for $2.31 per cord for pine on the stump, $2.13 

 per cord for spruce, $3.23 for oak and birch; saw-log timber was 

 selling for 9.8 cents per cubic foot for pine and spruce and 12.3 cents 

 per cubic foot for oak. 



These figures give an idea of the range of prices for timber and 

 firewood in the Russian Empire. Stumpage pnces have now reached 

 such a point that further advance is hardly to be expected. There 

 are, of course, many places here and there, remote from means of 

 transportation, where forests are still cheap; but as soon as a railroad 

 is built the price of land, and with it the price of timber, will jump 

 at once. 



FINLAND. 



FOREST AREA. 



Finland, although politically part of the Russian Empire, has had 

 an independent economic development. 



The forest area may be given as 52,500,000 acres, or 54.4 per cent 

 of the total land area, and 18| acres per capita. The State in all owns 

 or controls 32,117,500 acres, or about 61.2 per cent of all the forest 

 area. The rest, 38.8 per cent, belongs to private owners. The forests 

 extend only to the sixty-ninth degree north latitude. Only a few 

 species, like birch, extend farther north. The forests are composed 

 almost exclusively of pine, spruce, birch, and, to some extent, alder. 

 The most valuable species is, of course, the pine, which is, however, of 

 very slow growth. It takes the pine from eighty to two hundred 

 years to reach sizes suitable for construction, and from one hundred 

 and forty to one hundred and eighty years to make saw logs. The 

 farther north it is, the slower, of course, is its growth. As a rule, the 

 spruce occupies more fertile soil than the pine and reaches its develop- 

 ment in a much shorter time. 



