PRIMITIVE TREAlFMENT OF FORESTS. 81 



Condition of the agricultural economy of the people, 

 together with the paucity of labourers and the lack of 

 manures, and the circumstance that the temporary culture 

 of the fields which is thus effected supplies the only means 

 of support to man, and, on the other hand, the great extent 

 of the forests and the difficulty of maintaining an efficient 

 watch over them by wardens or forest watchmen with a 

 great extent of forest entrusted to their care, we cannot 

 condemn the Forest Administration for not adopting 

 effectual measures to prevent altogether this unathorised 

 felling of trees in the forest. 



' This unauthorised felling is the primary form taken by 

 agriculture the first step taken towards the development 

 of rural economy. We hope in process of time to get 

 beyond this ; but to put it down by force would not be a 

 rational course of procedure. The Northern peasant not 

 having productive ground near his residence,nor means to 

 improve it if he had, goes into the depth of the forest, 

 burns down trees, and cultivates his temporary field for two 

 or three years, or so long as its power of fertile reproduc- 

 tion is not exhausted the fertility being produced by the 

 ashes and cinders of the burnt trees. The persuasion of 

 the peasant as to the perfect legality of such a procedure 

 is such, that it is very doubtful whether any general 

 measure of repression at present could remedy the evil. 

 In order fully to understand the economic condition of 

 this region we must go back some fifty years or so, and 

 look at things with other eyes. I consider that this 

 unauthorised felling originally was legal and reasonable 

 suitable for the place where the forests are very dense ; 

 but as a principle it admits of some formal limitation, 

 and this, according to these reports, appears to have been 

 attempted in the government of Olonetz in 1867. Of the 

 system of operations carried on by this people it is said 

 the first settlers in the country were satisfied with small 

 plots of ground of easy cultivation, but as they increased 

 in number they were obliged to have recourse to land 

 which was more fertile indeed, but marshy or covered with 



