254 Sweden. 
1903 was a general law enacted, which was to go into 
effect on January 1, 1905. 
Previous to this, locally applicable laws were enacted. 
In 1866 a law was passed which referred only to a par- 
ticular class of private lands, namely those forests of 
Norrland which the State was to dispose of for ground 
rent, or which had been disposed of and the conditions of 
settlement had not been fulfilled. 
Exactly in the same manner as the homestead and 
other colonization laws in the United States have been 
abused to get hold of public timber lands, so in Sweden | 
large areas of government land had been taken up for 
settlement, but actually were merely exploited. It was 
to remedy this evil that in 1860 an examination of the 
public lands was ordered with a view of withdrawing 
portions from settlement and of making forest reserva- 
tions. The royal ordinance of 1866 resulted, which was 
to regulate the cutting on settled lands and in such 
new settlements as were thereafter allowed. 
This law prescribed the amount of yearly cut and re- 
quired the marking of timber designed for sale by the 
government officers. 
This “compulsory marking” or “Lapland” law was 
in 1873 extended to all private forests in Lapland, and to 
some other districts in 1879. 
Forest property in other sections of the country was 
either by royal ordinance or by special law placed under 
some restrictions. For instance in the districts Wester- 
botten and Norbotten a “dimension law” (1888) limits 
the diameter to which fellings are to be made (8 inches 
at 15 feet from base), and if the cutting of smaller trees 
is deemed desirable for the benefit of the forest these are 
