96 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 



many. In India the small cultivators cut down the trees 

 wherever they can, and, of course, never plant, and the 

 destruction of the forests has greatly injured the rainfall, 

 dew-moisture, and supply of wood in the country, while the 

 peasants are burning manure of their cattle for lack of 

 better fuel, instead of putting it on the land. Government 

 has now been obliged to interfere, both for the protection 

 of forests and to plant fresh trees. In America along the 

 whole line where cultivation encroaches on the backwoods, 

 the trees are recklessly destroyed, even burnt down, and 

 no steps are taken to ensure future supplies of timber in 

 place of that which is so rapidly disappearing. What is 

 sent to Europe comes every year from a greater distance 

 inland.' And so is it here. 



Mr Judrae, in his account of his journey through the 

 forests in the Government of Olonetz, makes mention once 

 and again of the owners of saw-mills which he visited 

 complaining that the exploitation of the forests had become 

 unremunerative. This is attributable not to any falling 

 off in the demand for timber, or to reduction in the prices 

 obtainable, but to the increased expense in procuring 

 timber, while the other conditions remained the same. 

 And this increased expense is attributable not to a rise in 

 wages, but to the greater distance from which trees must 

 be brought to the mill in consequence of the exhaustion of 

 these in the immediate vicinity. 



In accordance with the complaints reported by Mr 

 Judrae, by a gentleman who had for years been engaged 

 in another of the departments of the exploitations, I was 

 informed that no trees were allowed to be felled within six 

 versts, or four miles of the river; and that with a view to 

 the conservation of the river, as well as the conservation 

 of the forests, no tree was felled but such as would yield 

 a trunk free from branch or bend, 37 feet long and 7 

 vershoks, or 12 inches, in diameter at its upper extremity, 

 apparently free from shake and from decay, and such as 

 must be felled in order to the removal of the tree required. 



