SANDY WASTES 147 



Other directions in which calls will undoubtedly be 

 made upon the scientific abilities of the forest staff 

 will be the necessity for grappling with the planting 

 of the great sandy wastes which have resulted from 

 the destruction of forests in the past, and which now 

 threaten to engulf valuable agricultural lands. This 

 problem is already receiving considerable attention in 

 European Russia, as has been shown in a previous 

 article. It will certainly demand skilful treatment in 

 her Asiatic dominions. 



From the descriptions already given of this great 

 area of forests, it will be realised that they form a 

 source of immense wealth, a wealth which for the 

 most part is as yet untapped. It has been shown that 

 in the drier parts of this tract the percentage of forest 

 is very small, and that in these regions, owing to the 

 bad treatment, in former times, of such forest as there 

 was, it is now reduced to small areas insufficient for 

 the requirements of the population. But although 

 this is true enough in the case of the Governments or 

 parts of Governments concerned, e.g. the Steppe 

 region and Turkestan, it does not apply to the bulk 

 of the great forest areas. These, in spite of fire, 

 in spite of the war waged against them by man either 

 for the purpose of extending agriculture, or from 

 thoughtlessness, ignorance, or for the mere pleasure 

 of being wastefully extravagant — in spite of all they 

 have suffered in the past and suffer at the present 

 time, these forests still cover an enormous extent of 

 country, and contain a vast amount of unexploited 

 timber and other forestry materials. In the past the 

 conditions which would have enabled them to be 



