48 



The designation Furetage has been derived from furet, a ferret, 

 and it has been given, I presume, in allusion to the forester seeking 

 out or ferreting out the tree he requires, and felling it alone ; but it is 

 more generally called Jardinage, a word derived fromjardin, a garden. 

 This designation may have been given from the similitude of the 

 operation to that of the gardener who gathers here and there the pot- 

 herbs most advanced in condition, or in immediate danger of going to 

 seed ; and when carried out extensively and long it produces in the 

 forest an appearance not unlike that of the half- cleared kitchen- 

 garden, in which may be seen bean-stalks, void places, cabbage stocks, 

 half-reaped beds of turnips, of carrots, of onions, with withering pea 

 straw hanging from stakes inserted for its support when it was 

 fresh and young, and weeds of various kinds growing between. 

 This mode of operation is not confined to extensive forests, though 

 practised in these extensively in Russia and in America, as well as in 

 Britain and British dependencies. It is one well known to all foresters 

 who have to manage ornamental plantations, in the removal from 

 these of trees showing symptoms of decay, or of others in a good 

 growing condition deemed suitable for the market or required for use 

 and doomed to 'the axe, while the trees growing around are spared. 



In the central zones we meet with a more advanced form of forest 

 management, and in the southern zone we meet with forest extension 

 carried on to sue!} an extent as to give a character to the forest economy 

 of the region. 



It is to the forests and forest economy of the northern region alone 

 to which attention has now to be directed. 



I should have enjoyed having an opportunity personally to visit this 

 region with the operations on which I have long been acquainted ; 

 but while I was inquiring about the arrangement of steamers for 

 Lake Onega, Professor Schafranoff put into my hands a printed 

 narrative by Mr. Judrae of a journey which he made to and beyond 

 that region, with qualifications and facilities for obtaining information 

 far greater than mine, which rendered my journey unnecessary. Of 

 part of this narrative the following is a translation : 



" The first steamer of the season (1867) proceeding from St. Peters- 

 burg to Petrozavodsk, sailed on the 30fch May (Old Style), having 

 been prevented from sailing earlier by the ice on the Neva and Lake 

 Ladoga. With fine, somewhat warm weather, we left the capital, and 

 a few hours' hard steaming against the current brought us to Lake 

 Ladoga ; but scarcely had we got 30 versts (twenty miles) from St. 

 Petersburg when ice began to meet us, some of it in sheets of a very 

 large size ; and it was getting dark. The keen north-east wind made 

 itself felt ; and looking to the horizon there stretched out before us a 

 sea of unbroken or of congealed fields of ice ; the steamer, however, 



