194 FORESTRY IN LITHUANIA. 



been given in a preceding chapter, relative to forest exploi- 

 tation in Poland. And the policy seems to me to be to 

 entrust the work to educated foresters with general instruc- 

 tions, but with great freedom of action, so as to secure the 

 application to the details of the principles involved, 

 leaving them free in the determination of the application 

 of these, as the medical practitioner is left in determining 

 the application of the principles of his profession, to be 

 made in the case of any and every patient under his care. 

 Of the views entertained in Russia in regard to the 

 different methods of exploitation, which have engaged the 

 attention of students of forest science, I have given in 

 Forests and Forestry of Northern Russia and Lands Beyond 

 (pp. 101-108), a translation of a statement of these by M. 

 Werekha, in a Notice sur les Forets et leur Products, fyc.> 

 prepared by a special commission charged with the 

 collection of products of the forests, and of rural industry, 

 for the International Exhibition at Vienna in 1863. 



The following is an account of the transport and pre- 

 paration of timber on the rivers Dnieper and Berezina, 

 published in the Transactions of the Scottish Arboricultural 

 Society as an abridgement of an article on the subject in 

 the Timber Trades Journal : 



' The business is done here on no small scale ; the 

 amount of wood yearly floated down on these two rivers is 

 immense. From the moment, in the early spring, when 

 the ice melts and the rivers rise some ten to sixteen feet 

 above their usual level, we see the rafts coming down in 

 succeeding masses 



' Like all business in this part of Russia, the wood 

 trade is in the hands of the Jews. Owners of estates and 

 forests sell part of their wood to them, and they know 

 how to make the best of everything that comes into their 

 hands. Winter begins here generally in November. In 

 September, when the peasants have to pay their taxes, 

 contracts are made with them, when generally those who 

 are living together in small villages agree, and bind them- 



