FOREST POLICIES OF FOREIGN NATIONS. 291 



policy is Russia. Although one of the export 

 countries, with ;^30,ooo,ooo to $35,000,000, and 

 largely in the pioneering stage, Russia in Europe, 

 well wooded with 500,000,000 acres in forest, al- 

 though much in poor condition, has a well-devised 

 forest policy, developed within the last thirty or 

 fifty years, which consists not only in maintain- 

 ing government forests to the extent of about 

 300,000,000 acres, divided into 1500 districts 

 under tolerably good management, and 15,000,- 

 000 acres of Crown forests, personal property 

 of the royal family, but in restricting private 

 owners (110,000,000 acres in large domains and 

 75,000,000 in lands of small owners) from abuse 

 of their property, where the public welfare de- 

 mands, while in the prairie country in southern 

 Russia large amounts of money are spent by the 

 government in planting forests and in assisting 

 private enterprise in the same direction. 



With the Siberian forests and those of the Cau- 

 casus added, the area of government forest may 

 reach the large figure of 600,000,000 acres, which, 

 though not yet all placed under management, is 

 sooner or later to come under the existing forest 

 administration. 



The restrictive policy dates from a very elabo- 

 rate law passed in 1888, and extended greatly in 

 1900, in which the democratic spirit in the constitu- 

 tion of the body controlling the exercise of property 

 rights is interesting. The a.pproval of working 



