CHAPTER III. 



VIEWS ENTERTAINED IN RUSSIA IN REGARD TO 

 DIFFERENT METHODS OF EXPLOITATION. 



ACCORDING to a statement made by Mr Werekha, in a 

 Notice sur les Forets et leur Produits, &c., prepared by a 

 Special Commission charged with the collection of pro- 

 ducts of the forests and of rural industry for the Interna- 

 tional Exhibition at Vienna in 1873, ' in Russia the 

 systematic felling of forests was formerly dependent on 

 license or authority, and it is generally so even now. The 

 clearing of forests by systematic fellings by sections goes 

 no further back than to the time of Peter the First, and it 

 is not yet sufficiently practised. 



' The ancient Jardinage exists still in the greater number 

 of forests ; but this manner of arbitrary exploitation does 

 not now satisfy the sale and requirements in many places, 

 for some kinds of trees as necessarily predominate in the 

 forests of the north and the north-east of Russia ; and it 

 gives way in the central and southern part of the Empire 

 in proportion to the development of the demand over the 

 whole extent of the forests to exploitation according to 

 the system of management by regulated fellings. 



' The abundance of forests in the north of Russia, and the 

 little demand which there exists, are the cause why until 

 now many of the forests situated in the northern countries 

 cannot be exploited otherwise than by Jardinage to meet 

 the limited requirements of commerce and local need. 



' It was only in the latter half of the last century that 

 they began to make special plans or charts of the forests 

 and to prescribe the extent of felling which was to take 

 place. According to these old plans, this was carried out 



