Early Restrictions. 223 



The peasants being serfs were bound to the glebe and 

 had, of course, no property rights, being maintained by 

 the bounty of the seigneurs. 



Alexis^ successor, the far-seeing Peter the Great, who 

 in his travels in Germany and other European countries 

 had no doubt been imbued "vrith ideas of conservatism, 

 inaugurated in the end of the 17th and beginning of the 

 18th century a far-reaching restrictive policy, which had 

 two objects in view, namely economic use of wood, which 

 he had learned to appreciate while playing carpenter 

 in Amsterdam, and preservation of ship timber, which 

 his desire to build up a navy dictated. All forests for 

 35 miles along rivers were declared in ban and placed 

 under the supervision of the newly organized Adminis- 

 tration of the Grown forests. In these banforests the 

 felling of timbers fit for ship buUding was forbidden. 

 Minute regulations as to the proper use of wood for the 

 purposes for which it was most fit were prescribed, 

 and the use of the saw instead of the axe was ordered. 

 These rules were to prevail in all forests, with a 

 few exceptions, and penalties were to be enacted for 

 contraventions. 



This good beginning experienced a short setback 

 under Catherine I (1725), Peter's wife, who, influenced 

 by her minister, Menshikoff, abolished the forest admin- 

 istration and the penalties, and reduced the number and 

 size of banforests. But the entire legislation was re- 

 enacted within three years after Catherine's death 

 (1727) under Anna Ivanovna's reign, and many new 

 prescriptions for the proper use of wood were added and 

 additional penalties enforced. 



At this time, under the influence of a "forest expert," 



