54 THE FOREST LANDS OF FINLAND. 
are sacrificed every year; and last of all, the reckless and 
excessive consumption of wood as fuel in houses, baths, 
furnaces, &c. According to an approximate estimate made 
by a Commissioner appointed to inspect the forests belong- 
ing to the Crown, there are consumed annually in Finland 
seven hundred and fifty-four millions of cubic feet of wood, 
over and above the consumption in towns and the quantity 
exported. This great destruction, however, has been some- 
what reduced since the improvement on roads and com- 
munications, and a more lively speculation has imparted 
to wood a money value which it had not previously. At 
the same time this latter circumstance has not unfre- 
quently had an injurious influence, for proprietors, tempted 
by the high prices, have sold their forests to enterprising 
proprietors of saw-mills, who have hasted to clear them off, 
stock and stem. This new devastation has engaged the 
attention both of the public and of the Government, which 
it will have to endeavour to regulate, if it be not speedily 
restrained by the ever increasing price of wood, and by 
changes on the conditions of the market,’ 
Such is the field of study upon which we are about to 
enter. To a tourist in Finland the practice of devastation 
may appear to be overdrawn, and the anxiety uncalled 
for; but it is those who know what the consumption is, 
and what proportion thé annual cubic increase of forest 
product by growth bears to this, who alone can speak with 
authority on the subject. 
