PROJECTED LEGISLATION ON FORESTRY. 215 
not far to be sought. In the same direction, the sawing 
business and speculation in timber have develope! them- 
selves. Forest products, which till very lately have been 
almost unsaleable in the interior of the country, have also 
become a valuable article of trade; and just as the pro- 
prietors of forests in Sweden and Norway, under the 
influence of well-instructed foresters in these countries, 
have been led, through the high prices of timber, to adopt 
a more careful forest economy, so has the increased price of 
forest products likewise with us worked in the same direc- 
tion. Every limitation of the forest proprietor’s right to 
the free use of his own forest must meanwhile, add the 
Committee, only bring about an alteration for the worse; 
for, in whatever form it may be thought best to introduce 
such a limitation, the same must more or less hinder the 
turning to profit of the forest products in that way which 
the proprietor finds most advantageous to himself; and 
consequently it must so far depreciate the value of the 
wood, To limit the proprietors of forests in different ways 
in turning their forests to profit is moreover an invasion of 
the rights of property which is theirs by the funda- 
mental law of the land. Against such a tendency this 
Committee also pronounced that any actual control over 
the carrying out of the law in this direction could scarcely 
be thought of. 
‘Still, it must not be left out of account, say the Com- 
mittee, that an unwise cutting down of the forests must not 
only tend for a long time in the future to diminish their 
reproduction, but also entirely to destroy them. The 
Committee look upon the existing statutes which are 
found in section 35 of the Forest Laws of 1851, as not 
providing any actual remedy against such a course. For 
these statutes are applicable to such cases only when the 
cutting down of forests on a property may be regarded as 
dangerous to the continuance of its ability to pay the 
taxes; and apart from the fact that few such cases are 
likely to occur, this statute has at the same time this 
inconvenience, that forests on places which offer great 
