Forest Treatment. 331 



taken from the dead or otherwise useless trees, and 

 small dimension material is free to all. For the right 

 to cut workwood, the government charges a tax of 

 25 to 30 per cent, of the value of the material, the 

 price for this being annually determined. On the 

 material cut in private forests, the government also 

 levies a tax of from 12 to 18 per cent, of its value. 

 This pernicious system of promiscuous cutting leads 

 to the most wasteful use imaginable, not only high 

 stumps, but large amounts of good material are left 

 in the woods so that it is estimated that hardly 50 per 

 cent, of what is cut is really utilized. The cut, as far 

 as the tax gives a clue to it, amounts to round 2.7 

 million cubic feet workwood, but with the firewood 

 included it was estimated that near 90 million cubic 

 feet are cut annually. Importation to the amount 

 of 1.5 million dollars, mostly from Austria and 

 Roumania, makes up the deficit in work material, 

 especially for the box factories which manufacture 

 the packages for the large export of currants, some 

 2 million boxes. The tax during the decade from 1862 

 to 1871 produced an annual income of $600,000, a 

 little less in 1895. 



The forest has been from olden times, and is now 

 almost entirely, State property (some 80 or 90 per 

 cent.) and in nearly all the remaining, private, com- 

 munal and cloister property the State has a partial 

 ownership or supervision. The waste land of pro- 

 bably 3 million acres extent also belongs to the State, 

 the whole State property covering over 30 per cent, of 

 the land area. 



