8 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 
for effect, occupying prominent positions in the landscapes 
seen from a considerable distance as they are approached 
by the river. 
There is not a lack of trees ; but these do not constitute 
a characteristic feature of the scenery. On the north bank 
of the river, the land a mile or more in breadth, has 
been sold or ceded to private parties, Russian communes, 
German colonies, and Finnish villagers, but beyond this is 
a forest, belonging the Imperial Domains, 160 square 
versts in extent, preserved for the chase, where bears, 
wolves, elks, blackcock, capercailzie, and ptarmigan 
constitute the principal game. While this forest on the 
right bank, commencing a little distance from the river, 
but not seen from it in general, has been preserved, and 
may be said to extend almost continuously from the 
Finnish frontier to the Ural Mountains and Siberia, with 
what was once a forest, I may say, in continuation of this 
on the opposite bank of the Neva, it is otherwise. 
Along the left bank of the Neva, which at no distant 
period was richly wooded, the woods have been extensively 
destroyed, sometimes by forest fires, sometimes otherwise. 
The agricultural operations adopted on both banks have 
in many cases, perhaps in most, been the following; The 
ground has been cleared of the stumps and roots, which, 
after being piled and thus dried, have been used as fire- 
wood ; the ground then roughly ploughed, and, though all 
hillocks and hollows, has been sown with oats or rye, 
generally the former, and a remunerative crop, though not 
abundant, has been obtained. The stubble has then been 
ploughed in, and the ground in steep furrows exposed to the 
influence of the weather. In early spring it has been again 
ploughed, harrowed, and levelled; and potatoes, planted 
with appropriate manure. For two. or three years there- 
after oats, barley, or rye, are grown, but the rye, not being 
suitable for malting, can only be used in the manufacture 
of pearl barley, for which there is no great demand; with 
the last crop, the field is laid down in Timothy grass and 
