FOREST ADMINISTRATION. 131 



century was the treatment of them brought under satis- 

 factory control. 



According to one writer on Finland in the first 

 half of the present century : ' Wherever the population 

 tion is sparse, few in number, and widely scattered, and 

 there is more of forests than can be put to good use by 

 the inhabitants, the management or treatment of the 

 forests is very bad. In Finland the population numbers 

 400 to the square mile, and as yet everything is left to 

 nature ; management there is none. Until of late years 

 forests were of very little value, and accordingly they 

 received little or no attention from the peasants. And 

 this being the case, in dry summers fires were very com- 

 mon, and little trouble was taken to extinguish them. 

 But now the people have begun to manifest a better 

 appreciation of their worth. From of old has it been 

 enjoined by law that the forests should be protected ; but 

 the duty has been neglected.' 



' Frequently,' says another writer, ' are extensive ravages 

 committed by conflagrations occasioned by the caielessiiess 

 of the peasants in smoking their pipes and making fires 

 in the woods, and sometimes, it is suspected, intentionally 

 kindled from an interested motive, as the inhabitants are 

 allowed to cut down, for their own use, any trees in the 

 king's forests which have been injured by the burning/ 



Both statements are in accordance with what I learned 

 in connection with my enquiries relative to Svedjande. 

 There, as elsewhere, it is a grand spectacle which is 

 presented by a large forest in flames, and there is some- 

 thing awe-inspiring in the crash of trees falling, and 

 spreading more widely and rapidly the devouring fire. But 

 in many cases little or nothing is done to arrest the confla- 

 gration. The trees are of little pecuniary value ; scarcely 

 would the wood repay the expense of transport where no 

 stream is near ; nor is it to the poorer inhabitants such a 

 loss as it would be to others. In accordance with the 

 practice of Svedjande they scatter the ashes over the soil, 

 sow it with rye, roughly harrow it, and for two or three 



