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necessity which there is for the conservation of the forests and the 

 exploitation of them in a rational or scientific way ? Let any one 

 realize the case. Around all of these villages, even the smallest of 

 them, there are forests of which the eye can see no end, they appear 

 to be interminable ; and there are depths of them to which the foot 

 of man has never penetrated. The extent of these forests is such 

 that to the peasantry they seem inexhaustible ; while, on the other 

 hand, the severity of the climate, the unproductiveness of the soil, 

 and the poverty of the people are such as to seem to call upon every 

 one to find out for himself with a hatchet in his hand any means of 

 improving his condition. 



" The natural condition of the country could not have called forth 

 or exercised upon the people an effect more to be deplored. 



" The peasantry here look upon wood as being in common with 

 earth and air, fire and water, one of the elements, and as equally 

 free to all persons ; and they consequently consider that they are free 

 to use it without stint or limit, as one of the free gifts of nature. 

 This state of things, originating, as I have intimated, from the physical 

 condition of the country, can only be changed or destroyed by the 

 great change-producer, time ; and the reports of the consequent 

 destruction of the forests embrace numerous details of the extension 

 in the country of the practice of Sartage and Roeden, or Svedja. This 

 system of felling is very frequently met with ; but if we enter into 

 the circumstances of the case, considering, on the one hand, the con- 

 dition of the agricultural economy of the people, together with the 

 paucity of labourers and the lack of manures, and the circumstance 

 that the temporary culture of the fields which is thus effected supplies 

 the only means of support to man, and, on the other hand, the great 

 extent of the forests and the difficulty of maintaining an efficient 

 watch over them by wardens or forest watchmen with a great extent of 

 forest entrusted to their care, we cannot condemn the Forest Adminis- 

 tration for not adopting effectual measures to prevent altogether this 

 unauthorized felling of trees in the forest. 



" This unauthorized felling is the primary form taken by agriculture 

 the first step taken towards the development of rural economy. We 

 hope in process of time to get beyond this ; but to put it down by 

 force would not be a rational course of procedure. The Northern 

 peasant not having productive ground near his residence, nor means 

 to improve it if he had, goes into the depth of the forest, burns down 

 trees, and cultures his temporary field for two or three years, or so long 

 as its power of fertile production is not exhausted the fertility being- 

 produced by the ashes and cinders of the burnt trees. The persuasion 

 of the peasant as to the perfect legality of such a procedure is such, 



