FOREST INDUSTRIES. 135 



to which he makes some important statements, some of 

 which have been cited. Beyond all question the timber 

 trade is at present the most important throughout the 

 whole region. With increased facilities for transport there 

 may be drawn hence a large supply of fuel, so soon as the 

 rise in price occasioned by the diminishing supply in the 

 central and southern Governments of Russia may make it 

 remunerative to send firewood to the capital. 



In regard to terms on which the permission to fell timber 

 is given, information is embodied in the accounts given by 

 me of the operations of different companies engaged in the 

 trade. On this point the following more general informa- 

 tion was obtained by me. Where wood is in demand as 

 an article of commerce, whether as timber or as firewood, 

 standing forests are sometimes, both by Government and 

 by private proprietors, disposed of at so much per tree 

 felled, or so much per fathom of firewood obtained. Some- 

 times the charge is made for permission to fell for a 

 specified time, embracing, it may be, several years. In the 

 arrangements made relative to felling, sometimes the trees 

 which it is permitted to fell are marked by a representa- 

 tive of the proprietor, but more frequently the licence 

 holder is allowed to fell what and where he pleases. In 

 the one case, and in the other sometimes, only such trees 

 as may be preferred are felled in accordance with the 

 method of exploitation known as Jardinage ; in other 

 cases a measured area is cleared entirely. 



In the vicinity of the Urals, in the Government of Perm, 

 forests are exploited in accordance with the method known 

 in forest science as a tire et aire : in successive decades, suc- 

 cessive portions are cleared with the exception of balliveaux, 

 or reserved seed bearing trees of mature age, and it may 

 be saplings, the forest being divided into such number of 

 sections that by the time the woodman may have gone 

 over the whole the first cleared section will be again ready 

 for the axe. 



This is not practised here, but in some places there is 

 adopted systematically what is an approximation to it^in 



