FOREST EXPLOITATION. 117 



proprietors, there is carried out recklessly, and without 

 system, a succession of clearings in successive years one 

 portion being cleared this year, another portion next year, a 

 third portion in the year following. And on other estates, in 

 connection with mining and smelting operations, a some- 

 what similar exploitation is carried out more systema- 

 tically. 



A similar mode of procedure has been adopted in several 

 of the Crown forests. By Professor Sokanoff, who at the 

 time held the Chair of Forest Economy in the Forest 

 Corps at Lanskoi, near St. Petersburg, I was told, when 

 there in 1873, that it was not uncommon, and it might be 

 considered the general usage, to fell the forest in long 

 strips of 50 fathoms, or 350 feet, in breadth, alternating 

 with strips of the same width on which the trees were 

 left standing to sow the cleared ground. Where wood is 

 scarce they clear these strips completely j where it is 

 abundant they leave young trees nnfelled to grow, or be 

 destroyed in the removal of the others, as may happen ; 

 and when a new growth of trees has been fairely established 

 on the cleared strip, the strip of standing trees is cleared 

 if there be a probability of its being re-sown or otherwise 

 restocked with trees. 



A similiar account was given to me of the cutting of 

 fuel for a smelting furnace in the Government of Oren- 

 burg. Thirty years was deemed sufficient for the repro- 

 duction and growth of the firewood, and the whole was 

 divided into thirty equivalent portions, each of which was 

 allotted for one year's exploitation in the expectation that 

 in thirty years it would be reproduced. Strips were the 

 forms in which the several portions were laid out, and 

 these, so far as was practicable, were made to converge 

 towards the forge ; and in felling each a strip was left 

 unfelled for the production of seed for the natural re-sow- 

 ing of the portion cleared. My informant stated that the 

 strip left was either one-sixth or one-twelfth of the 

 breadth of the strip cleared he could not recollect which. 

 I think it probably it was left at the side, and that those 



