PROJECTED LEGISLATION ON FORESTRY. 215 



not far to be sought. In the same direction, the sawing 

 business and speculation in timber have developed them- 

 selves. Forest products, which till very lately have been 

 almost unsaleable in the interior of the country, have also 

 become a valuable article of trade ; and just as the pro- 

 prietors of forests in Sweden and Norway, under the 

 influence of well-instructed foresters in these countries, 

 have been led, through the high prices of timber, to adopt 

 a more careful forest economy, so has the increased price of 

 forest products likewise with us worked in the same direc- 

 tion. Every limitation of the forest proprietor's right to 

 the free use of his own forest must meanwhile, add the 

 Committee, only brin^ about an alteration for the worse ; 

 for, in whatever form it may be thought best to introduce 

 such a limitation, the same must more or less hinder the 

 turning to profit of the forest products in that way which 

 the proprietor finds most advantageous to himself; and 

 consequently it must so far depreciate the value of the 

 wood. To limit the proprietors of forests in different ways 

 in turning their forests to profit is moreover an invasion of 

 the rights of property which is theirs by the funda- 

 mental law of the land. Against such a tendency this 

 Committee also pronounced that any actual control over 

 the carrying out of the law in this direction could scarcely 

 be thought of. 



' Still, it must not be left out of account, say the Com- 

 mittee, that an unwise cutting down of the forests must not 

 only tend for a long time in the future to diminish their 

 reproduction, but also entirely to destroy them. The 

 Committee look upon the existing statutes which are 

 found in section 35 of the Forest Laws of 1851, as not 

 providing any actual remedy against such a course. For 

 these statutes are applicable, to such cases only when the 

 cutting down of forests on a property may be regarded as 

 dangerous to the continuance of its ability to pay the 

 taxes ; and apart from the fact that few such cases are 

 likely to occur, this statute has at the same time this 

 inconvenience, that forests on places which offer great 



