96 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 
‘many. In India the small cultivators cut down the trees 
wherever they can, and, of course, never plant, and the 
destruction of the forests has greatly injured the rainfall, 
dew-moisture, and supply of wood in the country, while the 
‘peasants are burning manure of their cattle for lack of 
better fuel, instead of putting it on the Jand. Government 
has now been obliged to interfere, both for the protection 
of forests and to plant fresh trees. In America along the 
whole line where cultivation encroaches on the backwoods, 
the trees are recklessly destroyed, even burnt down, and 
no steps are taken to ensure future supplies of timber in 
place of that which is so rapidly disappearing. What is 
sent to Europe comes every year from a greater distance 
inland,” And so is it here. 
Mr Judrae, in his account of his journey through the 
forests in the Government of Olonetz, makes mention once 
and again of the owners of saw-mills which he visited 
complaining that the exploitation of the forests had become 
unremunerative, This is attributable not to any falling 
off in the demand for timber, or to reduction in the prices 
obtainable, but to the increased expense in procuring 
timber, while the other conditions remained the same. 
And this increased expense is attributable not to a rise in 
wages, but to the greater distance from which trees must 
be brought to the mill in consequence of the exhaustion of 
these in the immediate vicinity, 
In accordance with the complaints reported by Mr 
Judrae, by a gentleman who had for years been engaged 
in another of the departments of the exploitations, I was 
informed that no trees were allowed to be felled within six 
versts, or four miles of the river; and that with a view to 
the conservation of the river, as well as the conservation 
of the forests, no tree was felled but such as would yield 
a trunk free from branch or bend, 37 feet long and 7 
vershoks, or 12 inches, in diameter at its upper extremity, 
apparently free from shake and from decay, and such as 
must be felled in order to the removal of the tree required. 
