Forest Administration. 269 



The crown forests, divided into some 1260 adminis- 

 trative units, are under the administration of super- 

 intendents, with foresters and guards of several 

 degrees. 



The whole service comprised, in 1908, about 3790 

 higher officials, some 850 of whom in the central office 

 at St. Petersburg, and over 30,000 lower officials some 

 20,000 of whom are educated underforesters. 



Large as this force appears to be, it is small in com- 

 parison with the acreage, and inadequate. Although 

 the net income from the 300 million acres of State 

 forest which are actually worked is now close to thirty 

 million dollars, the expenditures being near 6 million, 

 the pay of the officials is such as to almost force them 

 to find means of subsistence at the cost of their charges. 

 Perhaps nowhere else is there so much machinery and 

 so much regulation with so little execution in practice. 

 Nevertheless, progress is being made in gradually 

 improving matters, and the forest property, or at 

 least the cut, has become more and more valuable. 

 While in the middle of the last century the income 

 from the domain forest was only $500,000, by 1892 

 it had grown to $10,000,000, by 1901 to $23,000,000, 

 in 1908 to nearly $30,000,000, besides several million 

 dollars' worth of free wood. In 1908, the department 

 spent over half a million dollars on planting and assist- 

 ing natural regeneration. Timber is sold as a rule 

 to contractors by the tree or acre, and a" diameter 

 limit is almost the only restriction. In 1897, how- 

 ever, an arrangement was made by which the lumber- 

 man was obliged to reforest, or at least to pay a 

 certain tax into a planting fund, and a part payment 



