PRIMITIVE TREATMENT OF FORESTS. 61 
condition of the agricultural economy of the people, 
together with the paucity of labourers and the lack of 
manures, and the circumstance that the temporary culture 
of the fields which is thus effected supplies the only means 
of support to man, and, on the other hand, the great extent 
‘of the forests and the difficulty of maintaining an efficient 
watch over them by wardens or forest watchmen with a 
great extent of forest entrusted to their care, we cannot 
condemn the Forest Administration for not adopting 
effectual measures to prevent altogether this unathorised 
felling of trees in the forest. 
‘This unauthorised felling is the primary form taken by 
agriculture—the first step taken towards the development 
of rural economy. We hope in process of time to get 
beyond this; but to put it down by force would not be a 
rational course of procedure. The Northern peasant not 
having productive ground near his residence,nor means to 
improve it if he had, goes into the depth of the forest, 
burns down trees, and cultivates his temporary field for two 
or three years, or so long as its power of fertile reproduc- 
tion is not exhausted—the fertility being produced by the 
ashes and cinders of the burnt trees. The persuasion of 
the peasant as to the perfect legality of such a procedure 
is such, that it is very doubtful whether any general 
measure of repression at present could remedy the evil. 
In order fully to understand the economic condition of 
this region we must go back some fifty years or so, and 
look at things with other eyes. I consider that this 
unauthorised felling originally was legal and reasonable— 
suitable for the place where the forests are very dense; 
but as a principle it. admits of some formal limitation, 
and this, according to these reports, appears to have been 
attempted in the government of Olonetz in 1867. Of the 
system of operations carried on by this people it is said 
the first settlers in the country were satisfied with small 
plots of ground of easy cultivation, but as they increased 
in number they were obliged to have recourse to land 
which was more fertile indeed, but marshy or covered with 
