88 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 



sion of the peasant as to the perfect legality of such a 

 procedure is such, that it is very doubtful whether any 

 general measure of repression at present could remedy 

 the evil. In order fully to understand the economic con- 

 dition of this region we must go back some fifty years or 

 so, and look at things with other eyes. I consider that 

 this unauthorised felling originally was legal and reason- 

 able suitable for the place where the forests are very 

 dense ; but as a principle it admits of some formal 

 limitation. And this, according to these reports, appears 

 to have been attempted in the Government of Olonetz in 

 1867. Of the system of operations carried on by this 

 people, it is said the first settlers in the country were 

 satisfied with small plots of ground of easy cultivation, 

 but as they increased in number they were obliged to have 

 recourse to land which was more fertile indeed, but 

 marshy or covered with forests, and requiring labour to 

 prepare it for culture, and care and thought. Cultivation 

 such as may be seen in civilised communities was not 

 attainable by these people, were it only for their want of 

 agricultural implements and manure. In the same book, 

 on the page following, it is stated, " In these virgin soils, 

 previously covered with forest or bush, the produce of rye 

 in the first year was tenfold frequently twelvefold ; and 

 there were places generally places where there had been 

 old dense high forests in which^the produce was fiftyfold, 

 and in the second year the produce was from ten to fifteen 

 fold." ' 



