88 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 
sion of the peasant as to the perfect legality of such a 
procedure is such, that it is very’ doubtful whether any 
general measure of repression at present could remedy 
the evil. In order fully to understand the economic con- 
dition of this region we must go back some fifty years or 
so, and look at things with other eyes. I consider that 
this unauthorised felling originally was legal and reason- 
able—suitable for the place where the forests are very 
dense; but as a principle it admits of some formal 
limitation. And this, according to these reports, appears 
to have been attempted in the Government of Olonetz in 
1867. Of the system of operations carried on by this 
people, it is said the first settlers in the country were 
satisfied with small plots of ground of easy cultivation, 
but as they increased in number they were obliged to have~ 
recourse to land which. was more fertile indeed; but: 
marshy or covered with forests, and requiring labour to 
prepare it for culture, and care and thought.. Cultivation’ 
such as may be seen in civilised communities was not 
attainable by these people, were it only for their want of 
agricultural implements and manure. In the same book, 
on the page following, it is stated, “In these virgin soils, 
previously covered with forest or bush, the produce of rye 
in the first year was : tenfold—frequently twelvefold ; and 
there were places—generally places where: there had been 
old dense high forests—in which the produce was fiftyfold, 
and in the second year the produce was from ten to fifteen 
fold.” ’ 
