CHAPTER IV. 
CLIMATIC EFFECTS OF “SVEDJANDE,” OR “SARTAGE,” 
IN FINLAND. 
By Svedjande and its consequences, including undesigned 
extensive fires in the forest occasioned by the spreading 
of the fire beyond the area contemplated and designed for 
cultivation, there is being carried out in Finland a process 
which, in the same, or in some other way, has extensively 
cleared Europe of forests, which at one time extended 
almost continuously from these lands to the extreme south, 
and from the Atlantic to the Transylvanian regions in the 
extreme east. From what has been stated, it appears 
that there are in Finland districts in which this Svedjande is 
now prohibited; others in which it is carried on under 
restrictions; and others in which it is tolerated and 
apparently freely practised. In this we have an epitome 
of what, on a larger scale, is seen in Europe at the 
present time: the sites of what were immense forests are 
now densely inhabited by an agricultural and industrial 
population, with only here and there vestiges of the 
ancient forest, of which the existing forests in Norway, 
Sweden, Finland, and Northern Russia are the remains 
of the northern selvage; in some regions, as in some of 
these northern parts, the work of destruction is still going 
on; in others this is impossible, because all the forests 
have been already destroyed ; in others it is restricted by 
the imposition of legislative enactments, to secure the 
exploitation of the forests being carried on in accordance 
with the most advanced Forest Science of the day, securing 
a sustained production, and natural reproduction, of the 
forests, along: with the amelioration of the condition in 
which they are or have been; and in some districts of 
