IX 



THE FORESTS OF FINLAND AND EUROPEAN TIMBER 

 SUPPLIES l 



THE Great War has given rise, in certain parts of 

 Europe, to almost unprecedented demands for various 

 classes of timber. The materials have been utilised 

 in a variety of ways, outside their ordinary peace-time 

 usages ; for the flooring, walling, and roofing of trenches 

 and dug-outs, the hutting of troops in training, the pre- 

 paration of barbed wire entanglements, the handles of 

 entrenching tools, and for many other purposes, both 

 naval and military, which are better perhaps left 

 undisclosed. It was estimated the other day that 

 there were some 2,000 odd miles of trenches on the 

 Western and Eastern fronts. To construct these an 

 enormous amount of wood has been needed. The 

 whole of this material is lost to the world, for what 

 remains of it at the end of the war will never prove 

 serviceable. This excessive consumption of wood, 

 outside its legitimate purposes, has rendered necessary 

 the institution of a very careful inquiry into the 

 sources of present and future accessible supplies and 



1 Atlas de Finlande. Articles by Prof. A. K. Cajander, P. W. 

 Hannikainen (Director-General of State Forests), and A. B. He- 

 lander (Inspector of Forests). Helsingfors : Geogr. Society of 

 Finland, 1911. 



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