. October 3, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



399 



The Forest. 



The Forests of Siberia. 



WE have already called attention to the important 

 work upon the forests of Russia published in the 

 fourth volume of The Industries of Russia, translated by- 

 John Martin Crawford, the United States Consul-General to 

 Russia. In the fifth volume of the same work, which is 

 devoted to "Siberia and the great Siberian Railway," will 

 be found an equally interesting sketch of the forests of 

 Siberia, which are destined to play an important part in 

 the development of northern and central Asia, which, 

 when this railroad is completed, will become one of 

 the great wheat-producing regions of the world, and 

 destined to support an immense population. The com- 

 position of the Siberian forest is interesting, too, as 

 bearing on the future timber-supply of the world and as 

 showing that for certain classes of timber, like oak, ash 

 and the best building material, central Asia, if it is ever to 

 become an important seat of population, will have to de- 

 pend upon the islands of Saghalin and Yezo, and perhaps, 

 too, upon British Columbia and western Washington and 

 Oregon. 



The vast forest-resources of Siberia are unequally dis- 

 tributed over its enormous territory. The great forests are 

 situated in the north, while the south is nearly treeless. 

 The whole region may be divided into three zones, each 

 distinguished by characteristic features and situated in a 

 direction from west to east. The zone of what is here 

 called the "northern tall-stemmed woodlands" stretches 

 uninterruptedly from the Ural Mountains to the eastern 

 shores of Kamtchatka ; on the north it borders on the tun- 

 dras, the limit of the growth of the larger vegetation, and 

 on the south it extends to the region suitable for agricul- 

 ture. It is interrupted by large masses of impassable bogs, 

 and is composed of Pines, Larches and Firs. The decidu- 

 ous trees are few and insignificant, although Willows and 

 Aspens border the swamps and Birches occur in places. 

 This northern forest occupies all that part of Siberia where 

 agriculture is impossible from the deficient quantity of 

 heat during the five months of vegetative activity. The 

 fixed population is insignificant and the raising of grain 

 sporadic in small patches on its southern border. There 

 are localities, we are told, in this great forest-belt, " where 

 for tens and hundreds of versts in every direction stand 

 clean plantations of Pine, which, with their interlaced 

 summits, hide the sky. The absolutely naked trunks, 

 rising perfectly straight to an enormous height, are so 

 monotonous that a man who once chances into such a 

 part of the Siberian taiga, or even a wild beast, cannot find 

 his way out again. Access to such places is difficult, and 

 the timber contained in them is so far without value, but 

 with the growth of the population, the improvement of 

 roads and the destruction of the forests in the inhabited 

 parts, means will be found to make use of the now remote 

 forest-resources. The scourge of the forests of this zone at 

 the present time is only the forest-fires, not infrequently 

 devastating hundreds of versts. The burned timber is, 

 however, rapidly replaced by young underwood growing 

 up under the influence of natural selection." 



The zone of Birch-forest covers the whole of the low- 

 lying or so-called steppe portion of Siberia. This zone is 

 occupied by a settled population and practically coincides 

 with the cultivated or agricultural part of Siberia. The 

 principal and only valuable tree in this region is the Birch, 

 with a slight admixture of Aspens and Willows along the 

 banks of rivers. Coniferous trees are entirely absent. 

 "The Birch thrives on a chernoziom soil, and therefore this 

 zone is the most populated and particularly characteristic 

 of western Siberia, between the middle course of the Tobol 

 and the upper waters of the Obi. This region embraces 

 the so-called steppes of Ishimsk, Akmolinsk, Kurudzhinsk 

 and Barabinsk. Although it is usual to understand by the 

 word steppe an absolutely treeless space, in Siberia, with 

 the exception of the whole Kirghiz steppe region, which 



produces over large areas shrubs used as fuel in the mining 

 works, all the remaining plains are covered, more or less 

 thickly, with Birch patches or spinnies; giving the locality 

 a very peculiar appearance. These Birch copses, mingling, 

 when viewed at a distance, produce the effect of an un- 

 broken forest. Traversing hundreds and thousands of 

 versts by the western Siberian tract, the traveler sees every- 

 where on the horizon, as it were, uninterrupted forests. 

 The distribution of Birch patches over the steppe surface 

 may for the most part be called ideal, constituting precisely 

 that combination of wood, arable land and pasture which 

 is everywhere and at all times desirable in the interests of 

 agriculture. Thanks alone to this happy disposition of the 

 forests in this part of Siberia, notwithstanding the not 

 wholly favorable atmospheric conditions and the mediocre 

 soil, crops and grass thrive well." 



The forests of the south are confined to the mountain 

 slopes of the ranges which extend in an almost uninterrupted 

 chain, under various names, from one end of Siberia to the 

 other. In this forest Conifers prevail ; they yield timber 

 of excellent quality, although often difficult to obtain, being 

 remote from centres of habitation and usually confined to 

 steep inaccessible slopes. These mountain forests, guard- 

 ing as they do the sources of swift-flowing streams, are 

 extremely important in the economy of the country. 



During the last thirty years the Government of Russia 

 has been paying some attention to the care of the forests 

 of western Siberia ; in 1863, in the Governments of Tomsk 

 and Tobolsk, temporary regulations were introduced estab- 

 lishing a tax per stump for the use of wood. Preservation 

 of the forest was imposed upon the rural population, who, 

 in return, were allowed to make a free use for their own 

 needs, but not for sale. In 1S69 a law was promulgated 

 granting to a corporation the unlimited right of making use 

 of Siberian timber for industrial purposes. Since 1884 the 

 forests of western Siberia have been placed upon the same 

 footing as that by which the Crown forests of European 

 Russia are managed, that is by a paid forest-guard. 



In eastern Siberia the inhabitants are still allowed free 

 use of the forest for their needs, and there is as yet no 

 forest control. In the Amur country, where the forests 

 are believed to be extraordinarily varied and valuable, 

 steps have recently been taken toward ascertaining the 

 extent of the Crown forests and for bringing them under 

 state control. 



Recent Publications. 



Johnson's Dictionary. Revised and enlarged, by C. H. 

 Wright and D. Devvar. 



The Cottage Gardeners' Dictionary, which was published 

 nearly half a century ago, was enlarged and corrected sev- 

 eral times before it was twenty years old. It was revised 

 in 1863, and although several supplements have been issued 

 since that time, this new edition is the result of the first 

 thorough revision which has been attempted in thirty 

 years. The editors are both competent men and they have 

 had every facility for making their work complete and 

 accurate, so that the book is practically a new one as well 

 as a good one. One cannot expect such fullness of 

 detail in one volume as is found in the four volumes of 

 Nicholson's Dictionary, but by careful methods of abbrevi- 

 ation the work has been made very compact, and it con- 

 tains a surprising amount of matter. The very sharp, clear 

 type which has been used facilitates quick reference, and 

 a great many people, besides gardeners, who have to do 

 with plants and plant namps, will find it a useful addition 

 to the working library. Of course, the list of plants is the 

 chief merit of a book of this kind, and unusual care seems 

 to have been taken with the nomenclature, the synonyms 

 being placed in the body of the book, as they should be, 

 instead of being in a separate list. The book, however, 

 contains much besides the names of plants. There are 

 cultural directions, necessarily brief, but always good ; 

 descriptions of insects injurious to garden-plants, often with 

 good figures ; notes on fungous diseases and their approved 



