CHAPTER XIX. 



FOREST EXPLOITATION, TRANSPORT OF TIMBER, AND 

 EXPORT TIMBER TRADE. 



FROM a friend who has travelled more extensively in 

 Norway than I have done, I have learned and the 

 information is in accordance with what may be seen from 

 numerous forest maps which have been issued by the 

 Government that most of -the forests are found along 

 river-courses. They extend from ha]f a mile to three or 

 four miles from the banks of the river, and up the preci- 

 pitous hill-sides beyond. Sometimes the continuity is 

 broken abruptly on the river-bed by perpendicular cliffs ; 

 but the forest extends on the table-land above, like a 

 dislocated geological stratum, or the further side of a dyke 

 or fault, and this gives, as has been stated before, a char- 

 acter to the exploitation of the forests, in connection with 

 the bringing out of the timber. 



Many of the forests are private property ; others belong 

 to commercial proprietors. In both classes of forests the 

 right to fell timber is generally let to contractors possessed 

 of large capital, by whom arrangements for felling wood 

 upon an extensive scale are made. 



Previous to the introduction, of late years, of an 

 improved forest economy, the system of exploitation or 

 working usually adopted was one intermediate between 

 that known in France as Jardinage, felling only such trees 

 as were desired, and that known as A tire et aire,iu which the 

 forest is divided into as many sections as periods required 

 for the reproduction of the crops, and the;se are cleared in 

 succession, but only one in each period : the coupSs, or fell- 

 ings in different periods in these Norwegian forests not 

 being regulated in extent by precise measurement, but 



