142 FORESTRY IN EASTERN RUSSIA. 



as governors, judges, military authorities, and officials in 

 all departments of the service may have done. 



In all these positions there are men of high moral 

 worth, and there are, personally known to me, forest 

 officials of high position in the service, and others in sub- 

 ordinate positions in the forest service of Russia, who are 

 men of noble mind and high principle, who would condemn 

 such proceedings as indignantly as may any one of my 

 readers, and who, I doubt not, would say, ' If such things 

 be, by all means let it be known ; truth, like light, makes 

 all things manifest ; it is by an improved scientific con- 

 servation, exploitation, and extension of our forests that 

 we hope to preserve for our country an ample supply of 

 timber and of firewood for years to come, and if in all our 

 endeavours we are handicapped thus, the sooner we and 

 others know it the better.' Not only are there such 

 known to me, but I have never happened to make the 

 acquaintance or meet with one of a different spirit. I do 

 not the less, however, believe that things are, or have been, 

 as they have been represented to me in the mining districts 

 of the Ural mountains. 



And I hold it to be desirable that the student of forest 

 science in other lands should know not a little of the 

 multiform evils against which the practical forest adminis- 

 trator has ofttimes to contend. All that has been stated 

 I can cap with statements of like nefarious proceedings in 

 France, previous to the enactment of the famous Forest Or- 

 dinance of 1669,andwith like proceedings in England within 

 the last half century ; while the case of engineers certify- 

 ing the efficiency of steam-engines they had never seen, is, 

 I consider, equalled by what I have shown is reported to 

 have occurred in Scotland within the last ten years. 



But what I have more especially in view is to report 

 the conditions under which the now antiquated method of 

 exploitation known as La Methode ct Tire et Aire is being 



