204 THE FOREST LANDS OF FINLAND, 



temperature. They make about eight tons a-day (400 

 poods), and they export nearly all to Russia, but they find 

 it rather difficult to dispose of all they can manufacture. 

 They get 2 roubles 50 kopeks for wood pasteboard, and 1 

 rouble 90 kopeks for wood pulp. In South Russia rags 

 are still so cheap that paper manufacturers do not find it 

 economical to make use of wood pulp. There is also a 

 good deal of wood pulp imported into Russia from 

 Sweden. 



Besides the wood made use of in architecture, carpentry, 

 shipbuilding, match -making, and tanning, there is much 

 consumed in the preparation of charcoal, of potash, of 

 alcohol, of resin, pitch, and tar. There has been given 

 [ante p. 193] a statement of the quantities of these 

 materials exported in the years 1874-1876. 



Tar is manufactured chiefly in Easter Bothnia, but it is 

 also manufactured in all parts of the country. The manu- 

 facture of it is an industry of the people. It is carried 

 on thus. In spring they remove the bark from the trunks 

 of pines which have attained to the age of from forty to 

 eighty years, at the height of about seven feet ; but on 

 the north side they leave a strip of bark about an inch in 

 breadth, to prevent the drying up of the tree. After three 

 or four years they renew this cutting away of the bark, 

 but at a greater height, about 10 or 14 feet from the 

 ground. The result of this removal of the bark is that 

 the portions of the trunk so stripped become impregnated 

 with resin, and thus supply a suitable material for the 

 manufacture of tar. From six to twelve years after the 

 first removal of bark, they fell the trees, and the stripped 

 portions are employed in the preparation of the tar, which 

 is done in pits. They obtain two hectolitres from ten 

 steres, or cubic metres, of barked wood. It is calculated 

 that tar is made every year in from 4000 to 5000 pits in 

 different parts of the country, but the greater portion in 

 the provinces of East Bothnia. 



A model of the pit used there was exhibited at the 



