132 FORESTS OF SIBERIA AND TURKESTAN 



the woods or to their possible economic value. The 

 scanty population was allowed to treat them pretty 

 well as it liked. They took what they wanted from 

 the forests, practised shifting cultivation after the 

 fashion already described in the Finland article, or 

 set fire to large areas annually to get up new grass 

 on which to pasture their cattle. The building of the 

 Siberian Railway and the influx of population from 

 European Russia has had, it is true, some effect on 

 portions of the forests, but the areas are so vast that 

 it appears probable that they will be capable of 

 furnishing materials for export for a considerable 

 period of years. 



Roughly speaking the forests owned by the State 

 predominate throughout Asiatic Russia, the area 

 amounting to the gigantic total of 642,600,000 acres, 

 or about two-thirds of the total State forests of the 

 Empire. The forests occupying such extensive tracts 

 naturally vary considerably in quality, but 249,750,000 

 acres or 39 per cent, of the whole area is classed as 

 rich forest soil. This percentage is small when com- 

 pared with the 80 per cent, in European Russia and 

 the 63 per cent, in the Caucasus. It must, however, 

 be borne in mind that in the area under consideration, 

 especially in the zone bordering on the tundra (Siberian 

 swamp), vast tracts exist covered with a poor scrub 

 forest with no exploitable trees in it ; the areas 

 of value being confined to the southern hill slopes, or 

 to the valleys sheltered from the cold north winds. 

 Large tracts of fen-land, marshy lake areas, and great 

 stretches of burnt-over forest lands also exist in 

 Siberia, and go to swell the total of " poor forest soil." 



