96 THE FORESTS OF RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



may be used for floating is the " open " season, i.e. 

 when they are not ice-bound, and the same appHes to 

 the streams (five to eight months). In some Govern- 

 ments, Archangel, Vologda, etc., permission, which will 

 usually be granted, must be first obtained from the 

 Government. 



The railways also help, to a smaller extent, in the 

 carriage of the produce of the forests, but the freights 

 are of course much higher than for water-borne 

 materials. 



We now come to a consideration of the wood indus- 

 try itself. This industry has made the most extra- 

 ordinary development in recent years. In 1877 i^s 

 total value was only about 17,000,000 roubles. In 

 1897 it had reached 103,000,000 roubles. It is now 

 nearer 200,000,000 roubles (£21,667,000). 



The chief branches of this industry are the saw-mills, 

 of which there are some 2,000 in the country. The 

 most important are to be found in the Governments 

 of Archangel, Livonia, and Petrograd. The materials 

 sawn up in these mills are mainly exported, the greater 

 part to Great Britain. Elsewhere the chief mills are 

 situated at the mouths of the Volga, Dnieper and the 

 Don, and in the Governments of Orel, Saratov (especi- 

 ally the town of Tsaritayne), Volhynia, Petrokov, 

 Kherson, Smolensk, Kiev, Novgorod, Olonetz, Jaro- 

 slav, and Keletz. 



The companies which own and run these mills are 

 well-known commercial undertakings and in some 

 cases are very intimately concerned with the forestry 

 materials exported from Russia to this country. In 

 fact, the saw-mills may be considered to be one of the 



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