CHAPTER X. 

 PROJECTED LEGISLATION ON FORESTRY. 



FROM the consumption of forest products in Finland, and 

 the commercial demand for these for exportation, there is 

 being made continuously a severe drain upon the forests 

 of the country. Some advantages may be expected to 

 result from the clearing of extensive districts in a land so 

 densely wooded supplying ground for agriculture, and 

 bringing about climatal changes favourable to the enter- 

 prise. But withal it has been felt that it would be 

 prudent to secure all the advantages which may be 

 derived from conforming the management of the forests 

 to the ever-advancing Forest Science of the day, and the 

 matter has not ceased to receive the attention of the 

 Government. Within the last ten years three different 

 Forest Committees have been organised. The first gave 

 its report on the 24th of March 1874 ; the next published 

 its decision on the 14th of June 1879 ; and finally, in 

 the year 1881, a new Committee on the same question 

 was appointed. These in March last (1883) made their 

 report to the Government. Shortly thereafter there ap- 

 peared in the Helsingfors Dagblad a series of papers on 

 what had been done in this matter, and what it was pro- 

 posed to do, of which the following is a translation supplied 

 to me by a gentleman to whom I owe much for sending 

 to me from time to time notices of subjects pertaining 

 to forestry appearing in Russian newspapers, and for aid 

 in my work in other ways the Rev. W. Nicolson, agent 

 of the British and Foreign Bible Society : 



' The first Committee were called together under the 

 influence of a fear prevalent at the time relative to the 



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