EXPORT TIMBER TRADE. 119 
in other countries on the continent of Europe. Here, in 
view of the future, they are not extended; and when an 
arrangement satisfactory to all parties can be made, they 
are. being restricted or withdrawn; but meanwhile they 
are respected, and occasionally the officials of a commune 
come and offer to deliver say a thousand logs of specified 
dimensions at some specified point on a lake or river bank, 
or at the mill, on such terms as may be agreed upon. And 
such purchases are generally made in preference to felling 
on the contract with Government. Each raft consists in 
general of logs of uniform size, and thus the keeping of 
different sizes apart at the saw-mill is facilitated. 
Thither they are transported in summer, and the cutting 
up is begun at once. Any taken out of the water and 
remaining not cut up at the end of the season, are after- 
wards returned to the water before being sawn, it being 
easier to saw them damp than dry. When they are cut 
up dry the teeth of the saw are often broken. 
Of the forest operations of another company of timber 
merchants I received the following account :— The mem- 
bers of this Company, the Messrs Thornton, had the land 
from the Government for the purpose of felling the timber, 
and were obliged by their contract to cut down so many 
thousand trees every year, paying so much per tree. It 
was for the contractors to judge what trees should be cut, 
and, so far as my informant remembered, without any 
Government supervision as to the trees. 
‘The timbers were dragged by horses to the nearest 
watercourse, but it did not pay to drag a tree nine versts 
to a stream. The trees were floated down to the mill, 
and, in. this particular case, a waterfall was in the course, 
where many of the timbers were damaged, some even 
reduced to splinters. 
‘The sawm-iJl was on an island, and in such a 
position that ships drawing about 25 feet could come 
alongside the mill. But in the case of timber that went 
by the River Onega, the mills were on the river, and the 
