CHAPTER V, 



DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN FOREST ECONOMY 

 IN FINLAND. 



THE tolerance in some districts of Finland of the appar- 

 ently wasteful practice of Svedjande or Sartage is not 

 incompatible with an endeavour to introduce the strictest 

 economy into the management of forests in the same 

 districts and in others, nor is there anything inconsistent 

 in the endeavour to carry out simultaneously the two 

 apparently conflicting methods of forest treatment. 



In Nature Natura naturata, to make use of a distinc- 

 tion drawn by Coleridge, not Natura naturans, of which 

 poets speak we find profusion in combination with the 

 most astounding economy of material and of force, though 

 the command of both seems to be infinite. 



' Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 



The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear ; 

 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 

 And waste its sweetness on the desert air.' 



Yet we are told by Christ, ' Not a sparrow falls to the 

 ground without your Father,' and ' The very hairs of your 

 head are all numbered ; ' and the student of science, while 

 measuring the waters of the sea, or computing the age of the 

 earth, looks up to tell that it seems to him not one atom of 

 matter has been destroyed, or the minutest measure of force 

 been lost, since the world began. ' Consider the lilies of the 

 field !' says Christ. There is not one of them but has been 

 produced without waste, and finished with the perfection of 

 beauty and economy in detail, though, flourishing to-day, 

 to-morrow it may be thrown into the fire. 



In accordance with this is the combination in question, 

 and it is a combination which may be seen also in coun- 



