112 THE FOREST^ OF FINtAND 



importance. A portion of the good quality forest soils 

 are situated in the far north, and the forests on them 

 are chiefly maintained for protective purposes. There 

 remains, however, a large area of State forests con- 

 taining merchantable timber of good quality. But 

 this does not by any means exhaust the forest resources 

 of the country. In 1899 (the last valuation made) 

 it was computed that there existed 24,688,677 acres 

 of private forests occupying best quality forest soil, 

 and 4,597,235 acres of afforested bog and fen land. 

 These figures include areas of forests on Government 

 farms, ecclesiastical farms, and communal forests. The 

 communal forests, belonging to towns and villages, are 

 of interest. For instance, the town of Kajana, which 

 owns the largest forest estate, possesses an area of 

 24,192 acres ; the town of Tornea about half this 

 amount, Kuopio nearly a third, and so on. 



Timber- working companies also possess forests of 

 their own amounting to 1,421,847 acres, managed for 

 purely commercial purposes. No less than 55 per cent, 

 of the country which has been cadastrially surveyed is 

 in the hands of private proprietors, who thus own the 

 greater part of the private forests. These areas, in 

 consequence, play an important and, so far, a not un- 

 successful part in the economic forest policy of the 

 country, although their sylvicultural treatment leaves 

 much to be desired. So far as their exploitation goes, 

 i.e. their conversion into cash, the private properties 

 have been the chief source of timber export in the past. 

 In 1906 only about 13 per cent, of the raw material 

 used by the saw-mills came from the State forests, 

 and in 1907 only 16 per cent. In 1907 Finland ex- 



