350 Sweden. 



owners could then lease away other sizes, it might hap- 

 pen that 3 or 3 persons besides the original owner would 

 have property rights in the same forest. Of late years 

 many of the mill owners have endeavored to get rid of 

 the resulting inconvenience by buying the fee-simple of 

 the land. This movement has resulted in the aggrega- 

 tion of large areas in siagle hands or more often in the 

 hands of large mill companies. 



By the acquisition of these properties a certain amount 

 of cultivated land is usually included, which is then left 

 to the former owner at a nominal rent, provided that 

 he pays the taxes on the whole ; thereby creating a class 

 of renters in lieu of owners of farms. 



The area thus privately owned mostly by sawmill com- 

 panies must be over 35 million acres; the total private 

 forest area, which includes the bulk of the commercial 

 forest, is about 30 million acres, unreclaimable waste 

 lands swelling the figure to over 50 million. 



3. Development of Forest Policy. 



From the times of Olaf Tratalja, the first Christian 

 king of Sweden (about 1000 A. D.), who gained fame 

 by the part he took in exploiting the forests of Werm- 

 land, down to the 14th century Sweden suffered from a 

 superabundance of forest. Nevertheless, by the end of 

 that century restriction of the wUful destruction by fire 

 was felt necessary, and an ordinance with that object in 

 view was promulgated. 



It is questionable whether this order had any effect in 

 a country, where the homestead law provided, that a 

 settler might take up "as much pasture and arable land 

 as he could make use of, twice as much forest, and in ad- 



