Early Restrictions. 223 
The peasants being serfs were bound to the glebe and 
had, of course, no property rights, being maintained by 
the bounty of the seigneurs. 
Alexis’ successor, the far-seeing Peter the Great, who 
in his travels in Germany and other European countries 
had no doubt been imbued with ideas of conservatism, 
inaugurated in the end of the 17th and beginning of the 
18th century a far-reaching restrictive policy, which had 
two objects in view, namely economic use of wood, which 
he had learned to appreciate while playing carpenter 
in Amsterdam, and preservation of ship timber, which 
his desire to build up a navy dictated. All forests for 
35 miles along rivers were declared in ban and placed 
under the supervision of the newly organized Adminis- 
tration of the Crown forests. In these banforests the 
felling of timbers fit for ship building was forbidden. 
Minute regulations as to the proper use of wood for the 
purposes for which it was most fit were prescribed, 
and the use of the saw instead of the axe was ordered. 
These rules were to prevail in all forests, with a 
few exceptions, and penalties were to be enacted for 
contraventions. 
This good beginning experienced a short setback 
under Catherine I (1725), Peter’s wife, who, influenced 
by her minister, Menshikoff, abolished the forest admin- 
istration and the penalties, and reduced the number and 
size of banforests. But the entire legislation was re- 
enacted within three years after Catherine’s death 
(1727) under Anna Ivanovna’s reign, and many new 
prescriptions for the proper use of wood were added and 
additional penalties enforced. 
At this time, under the influence of a “forest expert,” 
