146 FORESTS OF SIBERIA AND TURKESTAN 



flying surveys having for its object to ascertain the 

 nature of the forests, species and relative abundance 

 of each, with an approximate estimation of the pro- 

 portion of old growing stock, and so forth. This 

 work is simpler, not so accurate or expensive to 

 undertake, and is applied to areas which for various 

 reasons are not at present workable. The more 

 detailed work of investigation and enumeration in the 

 forests enables the department to fix the varying 

 amounts of exploitable timber, i.e. the number of 

 trees which can be felled yearly, and the information 

 already compiled on this head for the great forests 

 of Western Siberia has shown that there exists 

 a very considerable excess of growing stock to come 

 out. 



In the Forest Department Report for the year 

 ending January i, 1912, out of the total area of 

 624,000,000 acres of State forests, 8,300,871 acres had 

 been subjected to the detailed investigations, and 

 67,914,917 to the operations of the flying survey, 

 giving a total of 76,215,788 acres, or about 12 per 

 cent, of the whole forest area. But the work, with the 

 increased estimates sanctioned, has since proceeded 

 at a greater pace, with the result that an area of 

 44,055,900 acres was subjected to detailed or partial 

 investigation in 1912 and 1913, and 22,182,200 acres 

 in 1914. By the beginning of 1915 the Department 

 had organised either by detailed or partial investiga- 

 tions an area of 143,100,000 acres, or approximately 

 one-fourth of the total area of the State forests in 

 Asiatic Russia. A good and most useful piece of 

 work. 



