98 TAE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 
of what is done in the felling of trees; and that in Siberia 
there is not even a system of taxation or of charge for trees 
that are felled: all which is in accordance with what I have 
heard from others. One of my correspondents who had 
occasion to travel extensively every year in the interior 
told me it had frequently happened, when he asked in 
regard to forests through which he was passing, to whom 
did they belong, he was told they were free, by which he 
understood that any one might fell trees without let or 
hindrance. They may have been communal forests ; but it 
happened too often and too far from villages to give coun- 
tenance to the supposition that such was the case. 
I have spoken of exploitation by Jardinage as being des- 
tructive of forests, and have in illustration cited what I 
have seen of its effects at the Cape of Good Hope. Similar 
effects have been witnessed both in Germany and in France. 
It was this which gave occasion for Colbert's oft-cited 
saying, France perira faute de bois / and for the celebrated 
Ordinance of 1669, known to, or known of by, most students 
of Forst- Wissenschaft, or Forest Science, on the Continent 
of Europe. And even in Russia, where forests cover regions 
which in extent appear interminable, it is seen to be only 
a question of time when forests will disappear, unless the 
measures now being adopted by the Forest Administration 
and patriotic landholders in various parts, or others, to 
which these may give rise, shall avert the evil. An approxi- 
mate estimate has been formed of the cubic measurement 
of the annual growth or increase of wood in Russia, and an 
approximate estimate has been formed of the cubic mea- 
surement of the wood annually consumed as firewood, 
building material, raw material of various manufactures, 
articles of export trade, &c.; and this has been found to be 
so far in excess of the former, that, but for the remedial 
measures referred tothe consumption continuing un- 
diminished, while the production was every year becoming 
less—in some 200 years Russia must be divested of her 
forests, 
