CHAPTER X. 
PROJECTED LEGISLATION ON FORESTRY. 
From the consumption of forest products in Finland, and 
the commercial demand for these for exportation, there is 
being made continuously a severe drain upon the forests 
of the country. Some advantages may be expected to 
result from the clearing of extensive districts in a land so 
densely wooded. supplying ground for agriculture, and 
bringing about climatal changes favourable to the enter- 
prise. But withal it has been felt that it would be 
prudent to secure all the advantages which may be 
derived from conforming the management of the forests 
to the ever-advancing Forest Science of the day, and the 
matter has not ceased to receive the attention of the 
Government. Within the last ten years three different 
Forest Committees have been organised. The first gave 
its report on the 24th of March 1874; the next published 
its decision on the 14th of June 1879; and finally, in 
the year 1881, a new Committee on the same question 
was appointed. These in March last (1883) made their 
report to the Government. Shortly thereafter there ap- 
peared in the Helsingfors Dagblad a series of papers on 
what had been done in this matter, and what it was pro- 
posed to do, of which the following is a translation supplied 
' to me by a gentleman to whom I owe much for sending 
to me from time to time notices of subjects pertaining 
to forestry appearing in Russian newspapers, and for aid 
in my work in other ways—the Rev. W. Nicolson, agent 
of the British and Foreign Bible Society :— 
4 
‘The first Committee were called together under the 
influence of a fear prevalent at the time relative to the 
P 
