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VOIi. XXXVII. No. 25 
WHOLE No. 1482. 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by the Rural Publishing Company, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
^rtrorirultural. 
RUSSIAN FORESTS. 
Of the 8,351,004 square miles composing the 
Russian Empire, it is estimated by the best 
authorities that fully forty per cent. iB covered 
with forests. These are very unequally dis¬ 
tributed throughout the land, for while it is held 
that from 90 to 95 per cent, of the northern 
regions of the country is clothed with timber, 
not much over two per cent, of the southern 
portion is wooded. The vast steppes, or elevated 
plains, which form the greater part of the latter 
territory are, as a rule, nearly destitute of trees, 
while some of them are in great part mere bar¬ 
ren tracts of Bandy desert. Nor is all the north 
well furnished with timber, for the broad toon- 
dras, which, towards the Arctio Ocean, are the 
counterparts of the steppes of the more southerly 
regions, are, like some of these, bleak, treeless 
wastes. In the vicinity of towns, also, and along 
the course of navigable riverB, timber is fast be¬ 
coming scarce owing to the reckless and im¬ 
provident manner in which it has of late years 
been cut down to supply the demands of local 
these bare oaBes, Russia can still boast of pos¬ 
sessing within her broad boundaries, embracing 
one-sixth of the territorial globe and one 
twenty-sixth of its entire surface, some of the 
most extensive forests of the world. So vast are 
these in the Government of Novogorod and Twer, 
between St. Petersburg and Moscow, that it has 
been said that a squirrel of a roving turn of mind, 
oould travel across the 390 miles between the 
two oities over the earth without ever touching 
it. The forest of Wolonski, at the Bonrces of 
the Volga, is the most extensive in Europe; in 
the province of Perm, containing on both sides 
of the Ural Mountains, 18,000,000 deciatines, 
17,000,000 deciatines are covered with pine for¬ 
ests ; and of 1,085,671,000 acres in European Rus¬ 
sia, 421,200,000 acres are wooded. In this mighty 
area are included the Black Forest, which oovers 
a surface of about 4,000 versts or 2,653 square 
miles; the noble forests of Archangel, Wiatki, 
Olonetz, Minsk, Wilna. Jitomar and the magnifi¬ 
cent lime forest of Kostroma. The Russian 
lime trees frequently display tops but slightly de¬ 
veloped, and possess only insignificant branohes; 
in this differing widely in appearance from the 
close ramifications which characterize trees of 
the Bame species in other parts of the world. 
abound, stretching over the two slopes of the 
central range ridging the peninsula. The 
bights which line the coast about battle-re¬ 
nowned Balaklava, are likewise clad with dense 
forests Bpreading thickly between Babougine- 
Yaila and Sohahr-Dagh. The pine forests of 
Taurida, and the huge beech woods of Laapi 
are also worthy of mention. In Ukraine, too, 
where the black earth, mollilluously called 
stepnoiezernozem, is found, Oaks, lames and 
Elms display a wondrous vigor of growth, and 
are associated with an immense number of mag¬ 
nificent pear trees. The vast frontier between 
Russia and Poland, in Lithuania, has a world¬ 
wide celebrity for its gigantio forest, extending 
over the entire district of BialiBtook. A genuine 
“ forest primeval” is this, in which the last de¬ 
scendants of the fierce urns, reputed to be the 
wild ancestor of our present races of domes¬ 
ticated cattle, still roam fearlessly in savage free¬ 
dom with the buffalo and elk. Amid these lonely 
wilds and gloomy depths, the Ruakis form a dis¬ 
tinct population, living a savage life in rude 
harmony with that of the wild animals around 
them. 
In Asiatic Russia the forests spread still more 
broadly, and are arrested only by the intense 
and dwarf Birches. Forests of Black Poplar 
skirtthe hills between Ouepenka and Thorne, 
and in many regions between the Alel and 
Irtysch there are vast tracts of jungle and forest 
in which the foot of man has never trod; while 
the mountain chains of Tazkel and Sayansk are 
roofed with sombre masses of umbrageous 
Birches. 
In Russia each kind of forest has a special 
name descriptive of its nature. The fir forest 
is called picktovniklc, the birch, bereznikk 
while forests of Oak, Lime, Maple, Ash, Larch, 
and numerous other trees, as well as those on 
marshy ground, in hollows, on sandy plains, or 
of specially lofty growth, have each a descriptive 
name equally brief and sonorous. 
Bat even the mighty forests of Holy Russia 
are rapidly disappearing beneath the advancing 
tread of civilization and its attendant—industry; 
and the axe of the lately liberated Muscovite 
serf is busily doing the work of destruction. 
Within the past twenty years rich meadows and 
outspreading pastures furnish abundant feed 
to oountless herds where formerly the cavernous 
gloom of intertwining bonghB and the rank 
luxuriance of tangled undergrowth afforded a 
refuge only to wild beasts, while impenetrable 
A RUSSIAN FOREST. 
manufacture as well as those of distant sections ; 
for the timber trade of Russia is the most im¬ 
portant branch of her internal commerce, and 
by means of vast rafts floated on the bosoms of 
her numerous rivers, the superabundance of one 
region is made to supply the insufficiency of an¬ 
other. 
But despite the existence, here and there, of 
The Oaks, too, are there adorned with fewer 
branches and thinner foliage than elsewhere, 
probably in consequence of the scare'‘y c f atmo¬ 
spheric humidity. Indeed the Russian forests 
are often etiolated by droughts which, while in¬ 
jurious to trees of all kinds, are especially de¬ 
structive to the Ash, Hazel and Elm. 
In the Crimea, also, grand old woodlands 
Arctic cold which checks luxuriant vegetation. 
In the government of KaBan oak forests abound ; 
on the north the oouiferte predominate, and on 
the south the Lime, Ash and Maple. Huge 
forests of Fir cover the banks of the Irtysch, the 
Baruaol and the Alei. The slopes of Atbachi 
are grandly robed in Pines and Larches, and its 
valleys clad with Rhododendrons, wild Currants 
to man. Broad fields, smiling with abundant 
grain crops, now occupy the sites of dense 
jungles, while on lands oleared but not cultiva- 
vated, small thickets of Birch are rapidly spring¬ 
ing up and these are soon followed by an array 
of Pines—a phenomenon of alternation in forest, 
growth not unknown on this side of the Atlantio. 
From these forests the Russian peasant sup- 
