292 ECONOMICS OF FORESTRY. 



plans, or of clearings on private property, is 

 placed in the hands of a specially constituted 

 committee for each county, which includes the 

 governor, justices of the peace, the county council, 

 and several forest owners, and the government 

 itself must secure the approval of this committee 

 for its operations. 



By this law, throughout European Russia, wood- 

 lands may be declared " preserved forests " on the 

 following grounds : That they serve as preven- 

 tives against the formation of barrens and shifting 

 sands, and the encroachment of dunes along sea- 

 shores or the banks of navigable rivers, canals, 

 and artificial reservoirs ; that they protect from 

 sand drifts towns, villages, cultivated land, roads, 

 and the like ; that they protect the banks of navi- 

 gable rivers and canals from landslides, overflows, 

 or injuries by the breaking up or passing of ice ; 

 that when growing on hills, steep places, or declines, 

 they serve to check land or rock slides, avalanches, 

 and sudden freshets ; and that they protect the 

 springs and sources of the rivers and their tribu- 

 taries. One hundred million acres of private 

 forest have thus come under supervision. 



In these preserved forests, working plans are 

 made at the expense of the government, and in 

 the unpreserved forests at the expense of the 

 owners. In each province the government main- 

 tains an inspector-instructor, whose duty is to 

 advise those who apply to him in forest matters, 



