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O AT THE FORESTS

OF

NORTHERN EUROPE

BY THE

REV. J. C. BROWN, LL.D.

LONDON:
AND W. RIDER, 14, BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE.

1879,

PRICE ONE SHILLING.

GLANCES AT THE FORESTS

OF

NORTHERN EUROPE.

GLANCES AT THE FORESTS

OF

NORTHERN EUROPE.

BY THE

REV. J. C. BROWN, LL.D.

LONDON:
' J. AND W. EIDEK, 14, BAETHOLOMEW CLOSE.

1879.

WORKS ON FORESTRY BY DR. BROWN.

Reboisement in France ; or, Eecords of the Replanting of the Alps,
the Cevennes, and the Pyrenees with Trees, Herbage, and Bush, with a view to
arresting and preventing the destructive consequences of toiTents : In which are
fciven a resume of Surrel's study of Alpine torrents, and of the literature of France
relative to Alpine torrents, and remedial measures which have heen proposed for
adoption to prevent the disastrous consequences following from them ; translations
of documents and enactments showing what legislative and executive measures
have been taken by the Government of France in connection with reboisement as a
remedial application against destructive torrents ; and det ails in regard to the past,
present, and prospective aspects of the work. London : Henry S. King and Co. 1876.

Pine Plantations on Sand-Wastes in France : In which are

detailed the appearances presented by the Landes of the Gironde before and after
culture, and the Landes of La Sologne ; the legislation and literature of France in
regard to the planting of the Landes with trees ; the characteristics of the sand-
wastes ; the natural history, culture, and exploitation of the maritime pine and of
the Scotch fir ; and the diseases and injurious .influences to which the maritime pine
is subject. Edinburgh : Oliver and Boyd. London : Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.
1878.

Forests and Moisture ; or, Effects of Forests on Humidity of Climate.
In which are given details of phenomena of vegetation on which the meteorological
effects of forests affecting the humidity of climate depend, — of the effects of forests
on the humidity of the atmosphere, on the humidity of the ground, on marshes,
on the moisture of a wide expanse of country, on the local rainfall, and on rivers, —
and of the correspondence between the distribution of the rainfall and of forests, —
the measure of correspondence between the distribution of the rainfall and that of
forests, — the distribution of the rainfall dependent on geographical position, deter-
mined by the contour of a country, — the distribution of forests affected by the
distribution of the rainfall,— and the local effects of forests on the distribution of the
rainfall within the forest district. Edinburgh : Oliver and Boyd. London : Simpkin,
Marshall, and Co. 1877.

The Schools of Forestry in Europe : a Plea for the Creation of a

School of Forestry in Edinburgh. Edinburgh : Oliver and Boyd. 1877.

The School of Forestry in the Polytechnic School of Carls-

ruhe. The School of , Forestry in the Royal Wurtemburg Academy of Land and
Forest Economy. The' School p£ : Forestry; in the Eseurial of Spain. * The School of
Forestry at Evois in Finland. Opinions of Continental Foresters and Professors of
Forest Science on the location of a School of Forestry. A British School of Forestry :
Review of Suggestions relative to its formation, London : J. and W. Rider. 1877.

On Schools of Forestry. Reprinted from Transactions of the

Scottish Arboricultural Society, Edinburgh ; M'Farlane and Erskine. 1877.

PBEFACE.

TOR some years I held, along with the Chair of Botany in the
South African College, Cape Town, the appointment of Government
Botanist at the Cape of Good Hope. In 1865, in giving evidence
before a select Committee of the Legislative Council, in answer to
the queries, "Have you anything to recommend as the subject of
forest economy ? Can you recommend any other mode of taking care
of the forests than what is now pursued under the superintendents?"
I said, amongst other things, " And thirdly, I recommend the procuring
information in regard to the most approved measures of forest economy
which are applicable to the management of forests in the colony, by
commissioning some one acquainted with these forests to visit the
forest schools of Germany, and if it be thought desirable, to visit
also the forests in other parts of Europe, and report thereafter what
is seen, or suggested by what is seen there applicable to the manage-
ment of forests in this country, whether relating to matters connected
with private enterprise or Government control."

After my return to Europe I addressed myself to supply the
desideratum, and prepared exhaustive reports on Forest Science, Forest
Legislation, and Forest Management in France, on the Forest Schools
and Forest Administration in Germany, and on the meteorological effects
of forests. Having been invited to spend last summer in St. Peters-
burg, I availed myself of the opportunity to verify and extend informa-
tion I had previously collected in regard to forestry in jScandinavia,

330255

vi Preface.

Finland, and Russia, by procuring official documents and reports
recommended to me by forest officials and Professors and Directors
of Schools of Forestry who had honoured me with their friendship
and correspondence. These documents have now been translated and
embodied in reports which may be published at any time should this
seem desirable. While this work was in progress these " Glances "
appeared in successive numbers of the Journal of Forestry, each of
them revealing the particular aspect of forestry presented for study by
the country to which they were devoted. In Denmark may be studied
the remains of forests of prehistoric times; in Norway, luxuriant
forests managed by each proprietor as seemeth good in his own eyes ;
in Sweden, sustained systematic endeavours to regulate the manage-
ment of forests in accordance with the latest deliverances of modern
science ; in Finland, Sartage disappearing before the most advanced
modem forest economy; and in Eussia, Jardinage in the north
merging into more scientific management in Central Eussia and
Eeboisement or sylviculture in the south.

JOHN C. BEOWN.

HADDINGTON,
April, 1879.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. DENMARK 9

IT. NORWAY . . .17

III. SWEDEN . 27

IV. FINLAND 41

V. NORTHERN RUSSIA 47

GLANCES AT THE FORESTS OF
NORTHERN EUROPE.

I.— DENMARK.

THE opening chapter of these glances at forestry in the north of
Europe is assigned to Denmark because the idea of preparing them
was suggested in connection with a professional visit to the north of
Europe, which I was invited, as a minister, to make last summer, and
Denmark was my point of departure, after crossing the German
Ocean or North Sea. I may further state, that in preparing these
•sketches I avail myself freely of information previously obtained on
similar journeys and otherwise, as well as of what I gathered in the
course of this trip.

Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, may be reached by railway
from Hamburg in fifteen hours, or it may be reached by steamer
direct from Hull, Newcastle, or Leith, in about forty-eight hours.
The railway journey from Hamburg will enable the traveller to
see something of the country ; but more may be seen by proceeding
by rail and steam from Copenhagen toFrederikshavn and Gottenburg ,
and thence to Stockholm, the capital of Sweden.

In Copenhagen the traveller should not fail to see the Thorwald-
sen Museum, the statuary by Thorwaldsen in the Fruekirk, or Church of
our Lady ; and if he is interested in anthropology and ethnography,
the museums of objects illustrative of these in the Prindsen Palace
should also be visited.

It is some forty years since I first visited Copenhagen. I was
proceeding from St. Petersburg to London by the Sirius — the first
steamer which crossed the Atlantic, and the first steamer which made
a voyage from Britain to the capital of Russia. Coal had to be taken
in at Copenhagen, and six hours being required for this, I went with
my wife to see the city. Meeting a " douce canny " man walking
slowly with his hands behind his back, and an umbrella under his
arm, I accosted him, and in broken German asked the way to some
object we wished to ' see. To my surprise he exclaimed in broad
Scotch, " Ae, Mr. Broon, who's a wi' ee ? " I was taken aback. He
proved to be the skipper of a Leith vessel who had heard me preach
in Leith, and whose wife was an old acquaintance and friend of

10-

our family, though I had never before met with him. To his kind-
ness in acting as a guide we owed much . He had been detained in
port by unfavourable winds.

About six miles from Copenhagen is the Dyrehave, or Deer-park, a
beautiful forest of, oaks and beeches, easily reached by steamboat or
rail, being a favourite resort of many people in summer. But to
the student of forest science, Denmark is more interesting from illus-
trations which it supplies of what has been, than of what is, in connec-
tion with forestry. So late as the eleventh century Jutland was
described as horrida sylvis, but it has gradually lost the greater
part of its woods. From the western coast of Schleswig they have
disappeared; on the eastern coast alone are they to be seen, and even
there they are but thinly scattered over the country.

The kingdom of Denmark is composed of several islands, together
with a portion of the continent of Europe. Some of these islands are
characterized by fertility, and Zealand, the largest, and that on which
the capital stands, has the face of the country beautifully diversified
with woods and lakes ; Jutland, the continental peninsula, is more
fertile still.

"The aspect of the Danish islands," says a writer of the last generation,
" in general, is pleasant and cheerful, consisting of plains intersected by gentle
hills, sometimes insulated and sometimes continuous, forming agreeable
valleys. The heights, for the most part, are clothed with pasture or shaded
with tufts of trees, whilst clear and azure lakes occasionally animate the
scene. The province of Jutland presents a ruder aspect, but at the same
time more varied and imposing, diversified with majestic forests, upland
moors, and fertile pastures. Holstein and Sleswick are level and well-culti_
vated countries, resembling England in their variety of hills, woods, rivulets,
meadows, and corn-fields. The environs of Plien are distinguished for their
picturesque, and those of Sleswick-town, Flensburg, and Apeurad for their
romantic beauties."

From statements made in Reventlovs Wirksomlied som Konyens
Embedsmand og Statens Borger, edited by Bergsoe, and cited by
Marsh in "Man and Nature; or, the Earth, as modified by Human
Action," it appears that —

" The felling of the woods on the Atlantic coast of Jutland has exposed the
soil not only to drifting sands, but to sharp sea winds that have exerted a
sensible deteriorating effect on the climate of that peninsula whi ch has no
mountains to serve at once as a barrier to the force of winds, and as a
storehouse of moisture received by precipitation or condensed from atmos-
pheric vapours."

In Schleswick-Holstein, and in Jutland, there are upwards of a
thousand German square miles of dunes and sand plains — 1,005
German, or 20,350 English square miles.

Besides suffering from the drifting of these sands, which may be
attributed in a great measure to the destruction of the forests, and

11

which a reboisement of the country might arrest, Denmark has suffered
often er than once from disastrous encroachments of the ocean; and in
other ways extensive lagoons have been formed. Thus Denmark has
come to supply many illustrations of the effects of vegetation, both
herbaceous and arborescent, in filling up and drying up marshes in
prolonged periods, extending back into pre-historic times. And the
Danish language is rich in specific designations given to different
kinds or forms of bogs and moors thus formed, whereby the pheno-
mena may be more accurately studied. It was in connection with
this that my attention was first directed to the physical geography of
the country.

Referring to a work entitled Om MojligJieten och Fordelen af
allmanna Uppodlingar i Lappmarken, by L. L. Lsestadius, published
in Stockholm 1824, Mr. Marsh remarks, —

" The English nomenclature of this geographical feature does not seem well
settled. We have boy, swamp, marsh, morass, moor, fen, turf-moss, peat-moss
quagmire, all of which, though sometimes more or less accurately discrimi-
nated, are often used interchangeably, or are perhaps employed, each exclu-
sively, in a particular district. In Sweden, where, especially in the Lappish
provinces, this terraqueous formation is very extensive and important, the
names of its different kiuds are specific and exclusive in their application."

Illustrations are given ; and something similar may be alleged in
regard to the nomenclature of these in Denmark. The student of
forest science finds the study of the natural history of these bogs thus
greatly facilitated.

In Denmark the tree which most extensively prevails at the present
day is the beech. When remains are found at all in a decaying state
under the soil, it is in the uppermost layer of peat-bog. As we go
further down in the peat, remains of the oak are abundant, though
the oak is, in the Denmark of to-day, almost entirely superseded
by the beech. At a still lower level we come upon remains of the
Scotch fir, and these in great abundance, though this is a tree which
has never, within the range of historical times, been indigenous in the
country.

In glancing at phenomena thus referred to, there arises first the
question, When did all this take place ? A second question
is, Whence came the seeds producing the successive crops of
different kinds of trees? And a third is, What light may be thrown
upon the physical condition of the country at successive periods by
these successive products ? Omitting the discussion of the second of
these, so as to gain space, I address myself to the first, and shall
briefly advert to the last question ere I close.

The hunters of the old Danish firwoods, and the fishermen who
produced the mounds of shells which are found in Denmark, lived

12

"before the ages indicated by the employment of bronze and of iron in
the manufacture of weapons, utensils, and ornaments ; but at what period
of time they lived we have not as yet the means of determining.
" We cannot," says a writer on the antiquity of man, " prove that the
Danish firs, and subsequently the Danish oaks, took a long time for
their successive disappearance. It may, in each case, have been
100,000 years, or it may have been ten times as long; but it is not
impossible that it may have been in a much shorter time ; but it is
alleged that these Danish fishermen were not the primitive race of
men, for their flint implements are polished, and belong to what anti-
quarians designate the Neolithic period, which was preceded, if not in
Denmark, elsewhere in Europe, by what is designated the Palaeolithic
period, during which the stone implements were unpolished and com-
paratively rude. These have been traced, or attributed, to a very
remote antiquity, about which geologists as yet can talk but vaguely
of the chronological landmarks by which its dates may be indicated.

The elevation of part of Denmark above the level of the sea may
have been a comparatively recent occurrence, viewed in relation to
occurrences indicated by geological phenomena not very remote. Sir
Charles Lyell, in his "Principles of Geology" (9 ed. chap, xxx.),
shows that the upward movement now in progress in parts of Norway
and Sweden extends throughout an area of about 1,000 miles north
and south, and for an unknown distance east and west, the amount of
elevation always increasing as we proceed towards the North Cape,
where it is said to equal five feet in a century.

" If we could assume," he says, " that there had been an average rise of
two and a half feet in each hundred years for the last fifty centuries, this
would give an elevation of 125 feet in that period. In other words, it would
follow that the shores, and a considerable area of the former land, of the North
Sea had been uplifted vertically to that amount and converted into land in
the course of the last 5,000 years."

Referring to certain post-tertiary marine deposits found at varying
elevations up to 600 feet in Norway, where they are usually described
as "raised beaches," he says, —

" A mean rate of continuous vertical elevation of two and a half feet in a
century would, he considered, be a high average; yet even if this be assumed,
it would require 24,000 years for these parts of the sea-coast of Norway to
attain that elevation; these or cotemporaneous deposits contain shells, —
different, indeed, from those of the brackish waier character peculiar to the
Baltic, but such as now lie in the Northern Ocean."

In the Bulletins de la Societe des Sciences., t. vi. (Lausanne, 1 860),
there is a good account of the researches of Danish naturalists and
antiquaries by an able $wiss geologist, M. A. Marlot. Apparently
with this before him, Sir Charles Lyell, in his "Treatise on the
Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man," writes (pp. 8, 9) : —

13

" The deposits of peat in Denmark, varying in depth from ten to thirty feet,
have been formed in deep hollows or depressions in the northern drift,
or boulder formation. The lowest stratum, two or three feet thick, consists
of swamp peat composed chiefly of moss, or sphagnum, above which lies
another growth of peat, not made up exclusively of aquatic or swamp plants.
Around the borders of the bogs, and at various depths in them, lie trunks
of trees, especially of the Scotch fir (Pinus sylvestris), often three feet in
diameter, which must have grown on the margin of the peat mosses, and
have frequently fallen into them."

Other trees are mentioned by him as found at lesser depths ; but
what more concerns us here, he goes on to say, —

"All the land and fresh-water shells, and all the mammalia, as well as
the plants whose remains occur buried in the Danish peat, are of recent

species."

And further, —

"It has been stated that a stone implement was found [by Steenstrup]
under a buried Scotch fir at a great depth in the peat."

Thus is it indicated that the fall of these early productions of
Denmark must have been subsequent to the appearance of man in
the locality.

At a higher level have been found remains of the oak, and at a
still higher elevation remains of the beech.

" By collecting and studying a vast variety of such implements [of stone]
and other articles of human workmanship, preserved in peat and in sand
dunes on the coast, as also in certain shell-mounds of the aborigines presently
to be described, the Danish and Swedish naturalists, MM. Nillson, Steen-
strup, Forchhammer, Thorn sen, Worsaee, and others, have succeeded in
establishing a chronological succession of periods, which they have called the
ages of stone, of bronze, and of iron, named from the materials which have
each in their turn served for the fabrication of implements.

" The age of stone in Denmark coincided with the period the first of
vegetation, or that of the Scotch fir, and in part, at least, with that of the second
vegetation, or that of the oak. But a considerable portion of the oak period
coincided with ' the age of bronze ' for swords and shields of that metal, now
in the museum of Copenhagen, have been taken out of peat in which oaks
abound. The age of iron corresponded more nearly with that of the beech
tree." *

But we have further to determine, if practicable, the period of the
time thus indicated ; and in doing this — or attempting it — some help may
be derived from what are called by the Danes Kjokkenmodding, kitchen
middens, or refuse heaps, which are found at certain points along the
shores of nearly all the Danish islands. These are heaps of cockle,
oyster, and other shells, mixed with bones of beast and bird and
fish. Similar kitchen middens have been found elsewhere. Of those
now under consideration it is remarked by Lyell that, —

* Marlot, Bulletin, cited p. 292.

u

*' Scattered all through them are flint knives, hatchets, and other instru-
ments of stone, horn, wood, and bone, with fragments of coarse pottery,
mixed with charcoal and cinders, but never any implements of bronze, still
less of iron."

These, then, must have been collected before the period of the
growth of oaks on the borders of the peat bogs. The stone hatchets
and knives had been sharpened by rubbing, and in this respect are
one degree less rude than those of an older date, associated in France
with the bones of extinct mammalia. The mounds vary in height
from 3 to 10 feet, and in area some of them 1,000 feet long, and from
150 to 200 feet wide.

By various observations it has been attempted to determine the age
of these mounds, and this is the question in which we, as students of
forest science, are chiefly interested. Lyell follows up the statement
of observations, by which it has been sought to determine that age,
with the remarks, —

"No traces of grain of any sort have hitherto been discerned, nor any other
indication that the ancient people had any knowledge of agriculture. The
only vegetable remains in the mounds are burnt pieces of wood and some
charred substance referred by Dr. Forchhammer to the Zostera marina, a
sea plant which was perhaps used in the production of salt.

" What may be the antiquity of the earliest human remains preserved in the
Danish peat cannot be estimated in centuries with any approach to accuracy.
In the first place, in going back to the bronze age we already find ourselves
beyond the reach of history, or even of tradition. In the time of the Eomans
the Danish isles were covered, as now, with magnificent beech forests. No-
where in the world does this tree flourish more luxuriantly than in Denmark,
and eighteen centuries seem to have done little or nothing towards modifying
the character of the forest vegetation. Yet in the antecedent bronze period
there were no beech trees, or at most but a few stragglers, the country being
then covered with oak. In the age of stone, again, the Scotch fir prevailed,
and already there were human inhabitants in those old pine forests. How
many generations of each species of tree flourished in succession before the
pine was supplanted by the oak, and the oak by the beech, can be but vaguely
conjectured, but the minimum of time required for the formation of so much
peat must, according to the estimate of Steenstrup and other good authori-
ties, have amounted to at least 4,000 years; and there is nothing in the
observed rate of the growth of peat opposed to the conclusion that the
number of centuries may not have been four times as great, even though the
signs of man's existence have not yet been traced down to the lowest or
amorphous stratum. As to the 'shell-mounds,' they correspond in date to
the older portion of the peaty record, or to the earliest part of the age of
stone as known in Denmark."

Thus far we have advanced with firm footing under us ; but here
we are stayed, as if a voice had called and said, " Thus far canst thou
go, but no further." Of what we have learned this is the sum.

In reference to the trunks of Scotch fir found in some of the bogs of
Denmark, it is stated by Lyell, —

15

" This tree is not now, nor has ever been in historical times, a native of the
Danish islands, and when introduced there it has never thriven ; yet it was
evidently indigenous in the human period, for Steenstrup has taken out with
his own hands a flint instrument from below a buried trunk of one of these
pines. It appears clear that the same Scotch fir was afterwards supplanted by
the sessile variety of the common oak, of which many prostrate trunks occur in
the peat at higher levels than the pine ; and still higher the pedunculated
variety of the same oak (Q'tercus robur, L.) occurs with the alder, birch
(Betula verrucosa, Ehrh.), and hazel. The oak has now in its turn been
almost superseded in Denmark by the common beech. Other trees, such as
the white birch (Betula alba), characterize the lower part of the bogs, and
disappear from the higher; while others again, like the aspen (Populus
tre,mula\ occur at all levels, and still flourish in Denmark."

From Vaupell's Bogens Indvandring we learn some curious
results in regard to what may be called the natural succession of forest
trees, which have been obtained in the examination of the bogs of
Denmark by Steenstrup and himself. The bogs appear to have gone
through some gradual process of desiccation ; and the birch, which
grows freely in very wet soils, appears to have contributed very
effectually by its annual deposits to raise the surface above the water
level, " and thus," says Marsh, " to prepare the ground for the
oaks."

Between the extremes referred to as characteristic of the state of the
ground in these peat bogs when the first and when the last of the
trees borne by it appeared, there are innumerable gradations, and by
the student of the habitats of different trees something may be learned
in regard to what is the character of the soil in regard to humidity or
aridity from the species produced by it.

In a volume entitled " Forest Moisture ; or, the Effects of Forests
in Humidity of Climate," * I have given details illustrative of the
drying up of marshes on the growth of trees, and of the desiccating
effects produced in marshes by forests in prolonged periods; and
reference is here made to the indications supplied by successive crops
of different kinds of trees of the progress of such operations.

From Bogens Indvandring i de Danske Shove, by Chr. Vaupell, we
learn that within thirty years these bogs have yielded above a million
of trunks of trees, and that they are found in depressions on the
declivities of which they grew, lying with the top lowermost, always
having fallen towards the bottom of the valley, and showing indica-
tions that they have fallen from age and not from wind, and that they
are found in the order of superposition which has been stated.

According to Vaupell, the earlier forests of Denmark were composed
of beeches, oaks, firs, aspens, willows, hazel, and maple, the first three
being the leading species ; but these have now been superseded by the
* Edinburgh : Oliver and Boyd, 1877.

16

beech, which at present is the tree which greatly predominates. But
there are indications that it also may be supplanted. It is a tree
more inclined to be exclusive than any other broad-leaved tree ; but it
is being encroached upon by the fir. This is attributed by Vaupell
to the practice of removing the fallen leaves for bedding for cattle and
other purposes.

"The leaves," says he, "belong to the soil. Without them it cannot
preserve its fertility, and cannot famish nutriment to the beech. The trees
languish, produce seed incapable of germination and the spontaneous self-
sowing, which is an indispensable element in the best systems of sylviculture,
fails altogether in the bared and impoverished soil."

In connection with this he says, —

" The removal of the leaves is injurious to the forest, not only because it
retards the growth of trees, but still more because it disqualifies the soil for
the production of particular species. When the beech languishes, and the
development of its leaves is less vigorous, and its arms less spreading, it
becomes unable to resist the encroachments of the fir. The latter tree thrives
in an inferior soil, and being no longer stifled by the thick foliage of the
beech, it spreads gradually through the wood, while the beech retires before
it and gradually perishes."

And thus Vaupell considers man is unconsciously, and to his own
disadvantage, helping forward the encroachment of the Goths and
Vandals on the nobler races at present in possession.

I have had occasion, in the volume cited, to say, " Thus may the
succession of firs to beeches, if it should ultimately occur, be satis-
factorily accounted for." And in a corresponding way may some of
the previous successions of different kinds of trees be accounted for.
I say not in the same way, but in some corresponding way ; and in
some corresponding way may much of the grass and herbage, which
previously covered the forest ground, have given way to the forest trees,
not because the conditions were absolutely unfavourable to them, but
because being also favourable to the growth of trees, and perhaps
comparatively more so, or otherwise simply from their more sturdy con-
stitution, these, having gained a footing, maintained it, and the others
were overpowered.

It is interesting, and in some cases advantageous, to read the pre-
historic records preserved in nature. And an acquaintance with the
natural history of trees found in the Danish bogs may throw light
on the gradual progress of the desiccation of these bogs, and on the
contemporaneous circumstances in which they existed at successive
periods of their history.

II.— NORWAY.

I ENTERED Norway at Christiansand, and proceeded thence by
Norwegian steamer to Christiania. I arrived about 6 a.m., and as the
steamer, of which there are one or more sailing every day, had left
three hours before, I had the day at my disposal, and walked first to
the cemetery, and after breakfast returning thither I rambled about on
the lovers' walk, extending over miles of well-kept footpaths, winding
about interminably upon rocks and rising ground lo the left of the land
as you approach by sea; and I found some of the views of the Fiord, and
of adjacent fiords, dotted with islands, exceedingly beautiful. After
dinner I took a sail by smaller steamer up the Torristal river, returning
by seven p.m. This little voyage, a similar one up the Topptal river, and
one which would have taken me out in the fiords, were all recommended
to me. My choice was made capriciously. I believe, from what I was
told, that I would have found either of the others equally pleasant, but
different. I found my morning ramble and my afternoon trip together
a good preparation for visiting more extensively the beautiful and
romantic scenery of Norway. On my return voyage on the Torristal
river I met with a timber merchant, who had that day completed the
purchase of a ship-load of wood which was still growing in the forest,
and who courteously and frankly informed me in regard to the transaction.
The farmer, a small landed proprietor, had engaged, on the terms
agreed to, to fell, prune, and deliver in the river the quantity of wood
required in logs of a specified average length and girth. All the
debris remained his property, and might be cut up for firewood and
used or sold, or otherwise disposed of as he might please. And the
logs would be, when delivered and accepted, floated down to Christian-
sand and shipped by the purchaser.

I have used the expression farmer or small landed proprietor, for
such is the character of most of the inhabitants of this district. The
banks of the Topptal river are dotted with houses and mansions, which
speak of greater wealth or more extensive possessions ; and many of
the farmers are dependent on the cutting and sale of wood to enable
them to pay their rent. The logs I found to be of but limited dimen-
sions, and I asked the timber merchant if the exploitation adopted did

B

18

not tend to devastate the woods. " Look," said he in reply, " there,
are young trees growing in every nook and corner down to the water's
edge on both sides of the river, throughout the whole course of our
voyage. And so is it for miles inland. As fast as we fell others grow."
I called his attention to the small size of the logs, and told him of what
was being done in Sweden and elsewhere for the conservation and
improvement of forests ; but he only laughed, as if that were a thing
altogether unnecessary here, and one which it would be ridiculous to
propose, and he called my attention to the floats of timber we were
constantly passing.

At one mill at Christiansand it is said 70,000 trees are thus floated
down and sawn up every year, and there are several other saw-mills in
the town. At Vigelund, about ten miles above the town on the Torris-
tal river, a little way above the rapids of the river to which the
steamer goes, there is another saw-mill. At the fall on which this mill
stands may be seen what I shall hereafter have occasion to refer
to as characteristic of the water transport of timber trees in Norway.
The author of a volume entitled "Frost and Fire," describing the
passage of this fall by trees, says, "At every moment some new arrival
comes sailing down the rapids, pitches over the fall, and dives into a
foaming ground pool, where hundreds of other logs are revolving and
whirling about each other in creamy froth. The new comer first takes
a header, and dives into some unknown depth, but presently he shoots up
in the midst of the pool, rolls over and over, and shakes himself till he
finds his 4level, and then he joins the dance. There is first a slow
sober glissade eastward across the stream to a rock which bears the
mark of many a hard blow. There is a shuffle, a concussion and a
retreat, followed by a pirouette sunwise, and a sidelong sweep north-
wards up stream towards the fall. Then comes a vehement whirling
over and over, or if a tree gets his head under the fall, there is a
somersault, like a performance in the Hailing dance. That is followed
by a rush sideways and westward, when there is a long fit of setting to
partners under the lee of a big rock ; then comes a simultaneous rush
southwards, towards the rapid which leads to the sea, and some logs "
escape and depart, but the rest appear to be seized with some freak,
and away they all slide eastwards again across the stream to have
another bout with the old battered pudding-stone rock below the saw-
mill : and so for hours and days logs whirl one way, in this case against
the sun, below the fall, and they dash against the rounded walls of
the pool. Such is the effect of these concussions that above the fall it
has been found necessary to protect the rock against floating bodies so
as to preserve the way of the stream. It threatened to alter its course
and leave the mill dry, for the rock was wearing rapidly. Lower down,

19

nearer the sea, is a long flat marsh, between high, rounded cliffs ; and
there these mountaineers, floating on to be sawn up, form themselves
into a solemn funeral procession which extends for miles ; and it may
be noticed that the course of this stream of floats is always longer than
the course of the river's bed ; for the water is slowly swinging from
side to side as it flows, and the floats show the course of the stream
and its whirling eddies."

The Hailing dance referred to is a Norwegian dance, reminding
one at once of the sailors' hornpipe and the Highland fling, but still
more vigourous and exhausting to the dancer, being diversified with
somersaults such as are here alluded to.

On my return to Christiansand in the evening I at once took pos-
session of my berth on board the steamer, which, like others in which
I have sailed on these northern seas, was more luxurious in its arrange-
ments than are those in many of the sea-going steamers on the
British coast.

We sailed at three o'clock in the morning, and from that time
till near nine o'clock in the evening, with the exception of about
an hour and a half in the middle of the day when we left the coast,
we were the whole way sailing onwards among islands, rounding them
and passing them as if on a pleasure trip — there being always rocks
to seaward to break the roll of the waves, and secure for us placid
waters, — and looking in on every village on the coast, while breakfast,
dinner, and supper were served with all the northern whets and
appetisers of which many a one has heard.

Steamers from Britain to Christiania generally avoid the coast, so
that this sight is lost until they enter the Fiord. Such as is the
Fiord, such was the whole course, with the trifling exception of the
hour and a half spoken of. I was reminded of a voyage through the
Thousand Isles of Lake Ontario ; but the scene was different. Here
the islands are rocks, but not rocks rough and rugged — rocks of
granite planed down and smoothed by glacial action, more like clean
and white and sparkling banks of mud than are rocks on a sea-girt
shore. It required no effort and but little fancy to picture them as
an ocean bed rising above the sea, when, according to the Hebrew
cosmogony, God said, " Let the waters under the heavens be gathered
together, and let the dry land appear." And again, " Let the earth
bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding
fruit after his kind : and it was so."

There, were the bare, rounded granite rocks, without a blade of
vegetation ; there, were others with only a lichen, or a moss or a
grassy, or flowery green spot. The former was on the dry rock, the latter
on any crack or hollowed basin; and there, where there was a wider rent

20

or a cup-like basin containing a handful of earth, a sapling tree ; and
there, an island not much larger, covered with trees to the water's edge,
and there, larger islands, or the main land, with high rising hills
clothed with wood and forests beyond. Again and again I felt that
day as if I were alone with God, or rather with His work, as His
work is described by Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs: "When there
were no depths, I was brought forth ; when there were no fountains
abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the
hills was I brought forth : while as yet He had not made the earth,
nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When
He prepared the heavens : when He set a compass upon the face of
the depth : when He established the clouds above : when He
strengthened the fountains of the deep : when He gave to the sea
His decree, that the waters would not pass His commandment : when
He appointed the foundations of the earth."

The effect was heightened by the general absence of animal life,
excepting at the towns and villages. Once or twice a cow was seen,
once or twice a bird on the wing, and once a realization of Kingsley's
picture of the sea-gull on the All-alone stone far out at sea ! This was
as we left the islands shortly after noon. There were four gulls
struggling to maintain their footing on a little projecting rock far out
at sea, washed over by a wave produced by our passing vessel. And
here and there a solitary house, neat, painted, and clean, might be seen,
or an island where road there was none but the highway of the sea, as
if man were only beginning to appear upon the earth.

From Christiania I took a trip towards Drammen, and saw what
Norway is under cultivation ; and my journey towards Aarnaes and
Charlottenburg gave me, in the first part of that journey, an opportunity
of seeing under cloud and rain, Norway in a condition similar to that of
our moorland districts in Britain. As if the former trip had shown what
the earth was when the earth was young — inhabited by man and
cultivated, but young — this seemed to show what appearance the earth
puts on in old age; and in journeying from Aarnaes towards Charlotten-
burg I found yet another aspect presented.

There are extensive districts in the vicinity of Glasgow, of New-
castle, and of Durham, where it appears to be coal, coal, coal, and
iron and coal, but chiefly coal, which constitutes the one article of
transport there and product of the locality.

In America, again, in travelling through the so-called oil district
lying between Pittsburg and the eastern shores of Lake Ontario, it is
oil, oil, oil, — oil everywhere, — what seem interminable trains of
waggons, but oil cisterns all of them, and pipes like large water-pipes
or drain pipes — all conveying oil.

21

Here it is wood, wood, wood, or perhaps I should say timber,
timber, timber and wood everywhere. Wood by the roadside, trucks
laden with wood, wood piled at the stations and on the fields, and
last of all a river covered with wood and floating timber.

This is the Glommen, here a broad river, and apparently deep ; near
the railway bridge by which it is crossed, the logs have been collected
into floating islands of wood, begirt and confined by a chain, of which
the links are logs, logs with a hole bored at either end, and tied one
to another by withes. As we proceed we see the river bearing hundreds
and thousands of logs onward to this gathering-place. The size of the
river compared with the size of these suggests the idea of some boys
having emptied into a brook a hundred, or a thousand, or a hundred
thousand boxes of matches, and we looking on seeing them floating away.
Again and again we came upon a little fall, one of three or four feet,
and there they came tumbling down sometimes sideways, some-
times slanting, sometimes head foremost, kicking up their heels in the
air.

The river is broad, it comes curving along through woodlands, these
partly concealed, and I felt as if I could realize the graphic picture
given by Hugh Miller of a river in pre-Adamic times bringing down
the forestal products which afterwards were converted into fields of
coal.

The Glommen is the principal river in Norway. It originates in the
lake Oresund, under the 62° of north latitude, and runs southward about
90 miles through a rugged channel full of cataracts and shoals. One of
its confluents is the Worm, which flows through Lake Mios. Before
their confluence it is as large as the Thames at Putney, and about
20 miles below this it flows into the sea at JFrederickstadt. Its highest
cataract is that of Sarpen, which is 60 feet perpendicularly, and is not
far from its influx into the sea.

In travelling thus far one meets chiefly with a stalwart race of
yeomen, presenting very much the same general appearance as do
Americans in rural districts in the United States, or as do sub-
stantial Dutch boors in the inland districts of the colony of the Cape
of Good Hope. But in Christiania there is a museum of Scandinavian
curiosities, amongst which are life-size figures of Norwegian peasants
in picturesque national costumes, which I had previously seen do good
service at one of the International Exhibitions, either that at Paris in
1867, or that at Vienna in 1873 — and which have been secured for
permanent exhibition here. I may mention in passing that I was
struck with the resemblance of many of the Norwegians of all classes,
both men and women, to personal friends of my own in Scotland. . I
have named a dozen, and might have named a score of friends whose

22

figure, gait, and countenance I found completely reproduced; and I
have never found this in other lands.

The author of the volume entitled " Frost and Fire," already cited,
noted like similarities between words in the Norwegian and the Scottish
languages. At one place he writes, "A 'cow* here is ' nout/ as in
Scotland ; to walk is ' tootla,' ' toddle.' The Saetar girl and the guide
who lived about seven miles apart, have different dialects, at least so they
said; and in this they are like the natives of all mountainous districts,
from the Yorkshire dales to the antipodes." And again, a little later,
" We rowed over the fjord to the place where the priest sleeps when he
comes to preach ; there was not a living soul about the place when we
arrived, so I got in through a window and took possession of the
priest's room. As it grew dark, people came tumbling in from the
woods where they had been working, and we had a party round the
fire at one of the houses. I could not understand half they said, for
I had now got into a fresh dialect ; but I fancied my hostess was a
witch or a doctress, for men purchased mysterious oil from a bottle,
which was carefully weighed, and one pretty girl had a long conversation
about some one who had been sick, and who was now " frisk."
Presently the door opened, and the husband, with a wet bag and a creel
of live fish, tumbled in, and then we all sat with our faces lighted up
by the wood fire, chattering like a flock of gulls ; while a little girl,
who woke up at the noise, kept screaming like a young cormorant from
its nest, ' Moor, gie me fisk ; ' that is, ' Mother, give me fish.' " I have
met with the same thing in Finland, which was formerly connected
with Sweden, and is geographically connected with both Norway and
Sweden by Lapland. There I have met with a cruse o oeley, a cruse
of oil, and flitting tyd, or the flitting time.

By another route, already indicated, the traveller may pass more or
less rapidly through the greater part of Denmark, and cross from
Frederickshavn to Gottenburg, in Sweden, by steamer sailing in con-
nection with a railway train, and arriving at Gottenburg in the evening,
about eight o'clock ; or Norway may be reached by steamers from Hull
to Gottenburg, and to Christiania; or by steamer from Leith to
Christiansand ; or by steamer from Hull to Bergen, touching at Sta-
vanger ; and there are steamers from London to one and another of
these ports.

In Norway, in the interior, the traveller may find that he has entered
a land, the most marked characteristics of which are forests ant! fiords ;
" forests whose vastness and shade, and solitude and silence, banish in
an instant from the mind all associations with songs of birds and
gay sylvan scene ; " and combined with these are also " lakes whose
deep seclusion put to flight images of mere grace and beauty,— valleys,

23

which from their depth and gloom one might fancy to be the avenue to
abodes of more mysterious creation; mountains, whose dim and
rugged and gigantic forms seem like the images of a world which one
might dream of but never behold."

In such terms is the country spoken of by an intrepid traveller,
writing under the nom de plume of Derwent Conway ; and in similar
terms is it spoken of by others. By one traveller, Norway is spoken
of as a land " whose only charm is to be found in her dim moun-
tains, her silent forests, and her lonely lakes."

Another, Edward Price, an artist, who traversed the land and
looked upon every scene with an artist's eye, speaks of Norway as
a country " which surpasses every country of Europe in the depths
of its fiords, and in the grandeur of its forests and forest scenery."
Having landed at a distant point, and traversed the land, chiefly on
foot, seeing thus much which could not otherwise have been seen in
the course of his tour, he reached the capital; and of what he saw as he
approached it he thus writes : " Luxuriant pasturage and crops, giving
rich promise of an abundant harvest, lay on every side. Wood was
no longer the great staple of the land, but was scattered over a charming
undulating country only in such quantity as served to shelter the
fields and beautify the landscape ; nor was it now confined to fir, but
included all the variety of trees which we are accustomed to find in the
temperate latitudes. The Christiania fiord, spotted with its islands, and
seemingly environed with its finely wooded banks, formed innumerable
bays and creeks, all calm and pellucid beneath the warm rays of the
noonday sun." Thus did it appear when approached from the land ; and
in accordance with this is the account of its appearance as approached
from the sea.

With an account of this we are supplied by the Rev. Henry Newland,
in a popular little work entitled, " Forest Life in Norway and Sweden,
being Extracts from the Journal of a Fisherman " ; and throughout this
little work are dispersed several graphic sketches of woodland scenery,
as viewed with the eye of a sportsman.

Derwent Conway's tour was made, if I mistake not, in 3 827. Price
travelled through Norway in the year before this ; but fifty years have
made no great change in the general features of the country. It was
in 1833 that I first went to the north of Europe. In that year Barrow
devoted a summer vacation to a tour through Norway, having pre-
viously made short excursions through Russia, Sweden, and Denmark ;
and not a few of his sketches will be found in keeping with those given
by the other tourists cited.

Somewhat nearer to the present time was published in 1850
" Rambles in Norway," by Thos. Forrester, Esq., in which there are

24

interspersed in the narrative many little sketches of woodland scenery,
and of the woodland population.

From any one of these publications some definite idea of the physical
geography and woodland scenery of Norway may be obtained.

From conversations with Mr. Charles S. Inglis, of Edinburgh a
gentleman who travelled extensively in the country, roughing it, and
rambling in regions and districts out of the ordinary route of tourists,
and who has published his observations under a nom de plume, I first
learned that in the northern portion of Norway the land presents the ap-
pearance of table-lands, or comparatively level plateaus, cut up by what
may be called ravines rather than valleys, which are sometimes more than
a thousand feet in depth ; these can only be crossed by zigzag tracks
or roads, descending the precipitous declivity on one side, crossing a
streamlet at the bottom, and ascending in a similar zigzag way a
corresponding precipitous ascent on the other; and in other places, that
of isolated hills and mountains, scattered about in what looks like
studied confusion, sometimes standing apart and alone, but as fre-
quently in groups of more or less irregularity, and of greater or less
extent, and sometimes, but that rarely, taking a form not unlike a
mountain range. Towards the south the country assumes gradually a
more level aspect, but it does so without losing altogether its hilly
character. The result of the whole is that about two-thirds of the
country is at an elevation of upwards of 2,000 feet above the level of
the sea, which is considerably above the range of forests trees in that
land.

The forests in Norway are by no means so extensive as the frequent
mention made in England of Norway timber may lead those who have
never visited the country to imagine. They are generally found along
river courses. They extend from half a mile to three or four miles
from the banks of the river, and up the precipitous hill-sides beyond.
Sometimes the continuity is broken abruptly on the river-bed by
perpendicular cliffs ; but the forest extends on the table-land above,
like a dislocated geological stratum, or the further side of a dyke or
fault.

Many of the forests are private property ; others belong to com-
mercial proprietors. In both classes of forests the right to fell timber
is generally let to contractors possessed of large capital, by whom
arrangements for felling wood upon an extensive scale are made.

Previous to the introduction, of late years, of an improved forest
economy, the system of exploitation or working usually adopted was
one intermediate between that known in France as Jardinage, felling
only such trees as were desired, and that known as a tire et aire, in
which the forest is divided into as many sections as periods required

25

for the reproduction of the crops, aud these are cleared in succession,
but only one in each period : the coupes, or fellings in different periods
in these Norwegian forests not being regulated in extent by precise
measurement, but being determined by the convenience of the con-
tractor ; and only trees suitable for his purpose being felled. These are
generally trees, on an average, a little under two feet in diameter ; and all
such are felled, leaving after them but a poor and scraggy crop of grow-
ing trees to replace, in course of time, if they can, what has been removed.
In Norway there is no lack of means for transporting the felled timber
by water to the coast. In many places the felled trees, stripped only
of their larger boughs, are tumbled into a mountain stream, to be
by it borne to the nearest river or lake ; in others, they are shot
along artificially constructed slides, leading to some lake or river.
These slides are in structure intermediate between the chemins a
trainaux and the langoirs orglissoires artificiels, used in France. They
are about 5 feet wide. Sleepers are laid across the line at about equal
distances apart, and upon these are laid, lengthwise, trunks of young
trees about 5 or 6 inches apart, and often so arranged that those at the
sides are somewhat higher than those in the middle to form a groove of
sufficient depth to keep the shot timber in the slide. In some cases
these slides run directly down the declivity to the river or lake to which
they are destined to convey the timber. In other cases, they run
across the side of the hill in a slanting direction. In some places earth
is removed to allow of the desired angle of inclination being
secured. More frequently this is attained by the slide being supported
at places by piles of earth or beams. When necessary, they are carried
on supports across small valleys, or watercourses, separating the forest
on the one side of a mountain from the forest on the side of another ;
and occasionally there may be seen their straight course altered by an
angle more or less abrupt. At such places there is generally raised at
the outer angle of the slide a bank against which the trees may strike in
their descent and then recoil into the new direction : these by the
new direction thus given to their course, go on, sometimes head
foremost, and sometimes making first a complete somersault or revolu-
tion. In general also a workman, or it may be two, or even three, are
stationed at these points with long poles to aid at the time the move-
ment of any trees which might otherwise be in danger of sticking
fast and blocking the way. The slides in general lead to pools of con-
siderable depth in a lake or river. Into these the trees ofttimes
descend more than their entire length, starting up again vertically
before setting off anew on their course.

Much debris is found all about such spots ; but it is comparatively
seldom that logs are seriously damaged. The quantity of splinters

26

may be, to a great extent, composed of the lesser branches left on the
tree when placed in the slide.

Brands or marks may be seen upon some logs. These are, I pre-
sume, the marks of the woodcutter or the contractor, made to enable
each one to claim his own property should logs belonging to different
proprietors get mixed together.

The logs are carried down by the river, and if the river fall into a lake,
they are— at the embouchure of the river — collected and formed into a
raft ; and such rafts are sometimes towed by a little steamer across the
lake to its outlet If the stream flowing thence be smooth, they may
be floated further as a raft ; if it proceed over waterfalls in its course,
the logs are unchained and allowed to float down apart, to be reformed
into a raft below these, if circumstances allow of this. Notwithstanding
the care which maybe taken, many logs are stranded on the banks of
the lakes and rivers. The logs are cut into size and shape for the foreign
market by saw-mills near the coast, which are driven by water-power.

Saw-mills of the simplest structure, consisting only of a water-
wheel and a circular saw, fixed apparently on the same axle, are
common appendages to farmhouses in the country. They are em-
ployed in cutting up the firewood required for the family and their
retainers.

By Forrester it is mentioned that in some cases two years have been
occupied in the transport to the sea of timber cut in the upper
mountains. From this some idea may be formed of the difficulties
which have to be overcome, and which are overcome, by the indomitable
industry of the people.

The forests consist almost entirely of the Norway spruce fir (Abies
communis) ; and in some parts of the country tar is manufactured.

III.— SWEDEN.

As the union of Scotland and England has had the effect of leading
most foreigners to think of these countries as one, with a general but
somewhat vague idea, which is substantially correct, that the one land
is the northern and the other the southern half of the island, so the
union of Norway and Sweden has had the effect of leading many
of our countrymen to think of these countries as one, with a general
if somewhat vague idea, which is also substantially correct, that the one
is the western and the other the eastern half of the peninsula.

In so far as forests and forest lands are concerned it may be
convenient to treat the two countries as one ; but when the question to
be discussed relates to forest economy this can no longer be done ; and
if the question arise, Whence comes the difference here ? we are
brought to the discovery of the fact, if it was not previously known, that
Norway and Sweden are inhabited by two different nations, having
different laws, different governments, united only in having the same
king, so that the union is more like that which formerly subsisted
between Great Britain and Hanover than that subsisting between
England and Scotland, where, though there be different laws in force
in the different countries, there is but one government common to
both.

Sweden may be reached by any of the routes detailed as
practicable for reaching Norway. From Copenhagen the traveller
may go to Stockholm via Malmo by railway in a day and a half
The journey from Gottenburg may be made by railway in a day, or
by steamer and the Gotha Canal in two days, the most interesting
portion of the scenery being passed by daylight, and this route
taking the traveller along by the famous Falls of Trollhattan. Should
the route by Christiania be preferred, the sail up the fiord will be
greatly enjoyed. From Christiania pleasant trips may be made to the
Miosen Lake and other places ; but the mountainous region of the
peninsula lies further to the west, and stretches away far within the
Arctic Circle.

To the traveller desirous only of visiting Sweden it is preferable
that he should proceed from Gottenburg to Stockholm by the Gotha
Canal, or return by that route if he go to the capital by some other

28

course. It will lead him through scenery grand, magnificent, and
beautiful.

My route leading me through Christiania, I entered Sweden by
Charlottenburg, which, like some of the other places at which I
rested, or through which I passed, I found to be pleasantly situated
and cheerful. The journey made continuously by rail occupies about
eighteen hours. On the way I saw nothing like the mountain
scenery of Norway, but several extensive lakes in a level country,
apparently only some three or four feet higher than their surface ; and
I saw nothing of the forests of Sweden, which are situated in part
somewhat to the south and in far greater part further to the north.

The forests of Sweden are extensive, covering about two-sevenths
of its entire area. The varieties of timber, however, are few. In the
north the pine, birch, and fir are the principal trees ; in the central
parts the ash, alder, willow, and maple are also common ; and in the
south the oak, beech, elm, and lime are met with. In the plain of
Scania the mulberry, chestnut, pear, apple, and walnut trees flourish.

In Sweden, says Marny, a French writer on the forests of Europe,
the woods are numerous, but little productive, and we only rarely
meet with vast forests. Dalecarlia, Wermeland, and the district of
Orvebro are the only central counties where arborescent vegetation
attains sufficient energy to cover with wood a large extent of country.
There the Conifer® almost always constitute the basis of the forests.
Sometimes, however, the birch replaces them, notably in Oster-Goth-
land. Sweden, like America and Siberia, has her forest fires, which
deprive in a brief time a whole forest of its shade; and vegetable life
once destroyed revives only with difficulty on this frozen soil.

In Norway the forests are more extensive ; they stretch along the
Scandinavian Alps, which separate this country from Sweden. The
birch there reaches an altitude of 1,200 feet above the sea.

In the diocese of Bergen the fir has still the gigantic proportions
seen in the forests of Switzerland and Germany, but more to the north
its size is diminished to stunted proportions, and at the polar circle it
has totally disappeared ; whilst in Swedish Lapland it advances yet to
two degrees beyond it.

In Norway it is the birch which really serves as a ladder to vegeta-
tion. It is the measure of its energy, and it marks by the different
states through which it passes, in proportion as it rises in altitude, the
degree of weakness of vegetable life. To the weeping birch succeeds the
Betula acer, which replaces the white birch; after which comes the birch
of the prairies, which passes in its turn through different gradations
of size, and which at the polar circle is nothing more than a stunted
shrub of pyramidal form, and covered with moss.

In Sweden of late years strenuous and successful efforts have been

29

made to introduce into the management of the forests the latest improve-
ments in forest management adopted in Germany and France, and to
regulate the national forest economy in accordance with the most
advanced forest science of the day. In regard to the measures adopted,
and the history of the movement from its commencement to the present
time, detailed information is forthcoming whenever it may be desired
and occasion serve.

In a pamphlet entitled " The Schools of Forestry in Europe : a
Plea for the Creation of a School of Forestry in connection with the
Arboretum at Edinburgh." * I have given a translation of the regula-
tions of the Forest Institute and Primary Forest Schools of Sweden,
which were sanctioned by the king under date of May 25, 1860.

The following is a translation of the existing later regulations: —

His MAJESTY'S NEW ORDINANCES FOR THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF FORESTRY
IN THE KINGDOM.

Stockholm Palace, 15th September, 1871.

Chapter I. — The Forest Institute.

Section 1st. — The Forest Institute, which stands under the inspection of
the Forest Department, and is presided over by a director, has for its end to
educate able forest managers by free instruction.

Section 2nd. — At the Forest Institute in the Eoyal Zoological Gardens at
Stockholm, a convenient locality is open at all times, containing partly lecture
halls and the necessary buildings, also space for the collections necessary for
instruction, partly also a portion of ground for nurseries, and the planting of
trees, and exercise grounds.

Section 3rd. — In the Institute instruction shall be given in the partition of
forests, cultivation of forests, forest technology, the doctrine of climate
and soil, forest botany, forest entomology, forest zoology, hunting, mathe-
matics, the institutes of forestry and hunting, book-keeping and transaction
of business, map-drawing, weighing, and the art of shooting.

Section 4th. — For the practical yearly exercises appertaining to the in-
struction, suitable forests must be appropriated by the Forest Department, in
case the fields adjoining to the Institute are not sufficient.

Section 5th. — The course of instruction, which begins with the month of
June each year, and for which pupils may be taken so long as there is room in
' the Institute and means for their support, continues two years, with a corre-
sponding division of the subjects of instruction for each year, so that the
teaching in the Institute, together with the practical exercises in its neigh-
bourhood, goes on from the beginning of October to the end of May, with
three weeks' vacation at Christmas ; and the summer months are to be applied
to forest measurement, together with other practical exercises, in the woods
appropriated by the Forest Department for this purpose.

Section 6th. — With the division of the subjects of instruction laid down as
follows, the instruction shall be carried out by the director as forest lector, and
three lectors, who shall constitute the college of the Institute. On the invita-
* Edinburgh : Oliver and Boyd, 1877.

30

tion of the director, the body of teachers shall meet together for common
consultation on matters affecting the work of instruction as may be demanded.
For assistance in carrying out the practical exercises in the division of
forests, the Forest Department may, on the director's proposal, instal two
tutors (repetitorer) for the time of those exercises, or one, as may be found
necessary.

Section 7th. — For the support of suitable pupils who distinguished them-
selves through diligence, ability, and good cultivation, also of graduated
pupils who may be employed as tutors, stipends are to be supplied to the
amount which may be fixed upon. The Forest Department shall appoint
candidates to these stipends on the recommendation of the college of
teachers.

Section 8th. — The director in the Forest Institute must have a thorough
insight into all the subjects of instruction taught in the Institute, and a
complete theoretical as well as practical knowledge of forest economy. His
duties are —

1st. To carry out with attention the course of instruction, and take
care that this, without setting aside theory, take a practical direction,
and also to see that secondary subjects do not develop themselves at the
expense of the instruction in forest economy. The director must send
in in the months of September and January to the Forest Department
for examination and confirmation the papers of the college of teachers,
in acccordance with the above-named plan of the order of work for the
session following.

2nd. Carefully to preserve good order, good moral conduct, and diligence
among the pupils of the Institution, and with this view to carry out the
arrangements laid down.

3rd. To send in to the Forest Administration before the beginning of each
quarter the estimates for the stipends of the candidates.

4th. To send in yearly to the Forest Administration before the month of April
a report relative to the action of the Institute during the previous year, and
also to give in to the Forest Administration his opinion regarding the various
questions concerning the Institute which may be raised by himself or the
college of teachers ; also to mention such business belonging to the Institute
as does not rest upon himself immediately.

5th. To watch over the preservation and safe keeping of the buildings
appropriated to the Institution, together with the inventories and collections
of the Institution, of which the director has to keep a complete list.

6th. To receive every quarter, of the Forest Department on requisition by his
Imperial Majesty and the kingdom's Chancery, the money set aside for the
payment of salaries and the support of the Institute, together with the other
moneys which shall be made use of according to the given prescriptions for
the payment of each year's charges, the papers belonging to which, together
with an inventory of the property of the Institute, shall be handed in in the
month of February following to the Forest Department.

7th. As to the forest lector, conformably to the precisely laid down order
of work, he shall instruct the pupils in the division and the culture of forests
and also in forest technology as an introduction to the already mentioned
brai ches of knowledge, especially in that of forest statistics and history,
together with the literature connected with forest science, with reference to
the final examination of the pupils in the said branches of knowledge;

31

it belongs to the director but to conduct the practical exercises which
belong to his subjects of instruction, and also to prepare the pupils to visit
occasionally the wharves, sawing establishments, and other places in the
metropolis or its neighbourhood where forest products are made use of and
manufactured : in which visits the director must accompany the pupils, and
communicate on the spot the information suggested by the things seen.

8th. To superintend the management of the woods which are put by the
Forest Department for the instruction of the pupils under the guardianship
of the Institute. The director shall live in the buildings connected with the
Institute.

Section 9th. The lectors in the Forest Institute shall each in that branch
of science which is entrusted to him possess thorough and comprehensive
knowledge, and both communicate instruction in the subjects taught according
to the fixed order of instruction, and arrange a final examination in the
branches before dismissal of the pupils.

Section 10th. The lector in the branch for natural science has to give instruc-
tionin the branches of science relatingto climate and soil, so far as applies to forest
economy; in forest botany, with vegetable physiology and vegetable geography;
the branch of science relating to insects profitable or harmful to woods,
with the methods of exterminating the latter; the branch of science relating
to Scandinavian wild animals and birds, with respect to the preservation of
forests and hunting; also the art of hunting; and to exercise practically the
students in the various branches of natural history by visiting with them the
museum of the Academy of Sciences, and by natural history excursions
with the pupils through the grounds of the Institute, or in the neighbourhood
of the metropolis ; and also to promote the student's proficiency in the art of
shooting in the shooting gallery attached to the Institute.

Section llth. The lector in the mathematical sciences has to instruct in mathe-
matics applied to forest economy; in the art of building, with respect to the
buildings for roads, waters, and other necessary purposes occurring in forest
technology ; the elements of land measuring, surveying, and map-drawing ; and
also to exercise the pupils practically in the grounds of the Institute in taking
levels, so as to promote their proficiency in diagram drawing.

Section 12th. — The lector in jurisprudence has to instruct in the legislation
of forest economy and the game laws, together with the methods of carrying
on legal proceedings and the management of forest service and book-
keeping.

Section 13th. — The tutor who on the ground of proved skill in the division
of forests is installed for the assistance of the director in the practical exer-
cises in this branch has, with respect to his official duty, to place himself at
the director's disposal in the discharge of the duties of his office.

Section 14th. — In order to obtain admittance as a pupil in the Forest Institute,
applications must be lodged with the director before the middle of May, and
the applications must be accompanied by certificates that the applicant is not
less than eighteen and not more than twenty-eight years of age, that he pos-
sesses a good character, that he has a sound and healthy constitution, is not
affected by any incurable disease, and that he has been declared, on the occasion
of his final examination on dismissal from the higher school, fit to go to the
university. The applicant ought, besides his certificate of dismissal from the
classical branches, to present a special certificate from a proper person that he
has the necessary knowledge in mathematics, physics, and chemistry, and
also that he has either gone through a forest school, or that he has, at least,

32

during one year, obtained practical acquaintance with forest management and
forest measuring by some official on the forest establishment properly
appointed by the Forest Bureau.

This certificate ought to contain some information as to the whole of the
forest work in which the candidate took part, together with proof under his
own hand that he can measure a field by means of the tables for land-measuring.

The said certificate must be examined by the college of teachers, and thereon,
if they shall see fit, the candidate shall be admitted as a pupil into the Forest
Institute.

In order that the Forest Bureau may be in a position to state how far excep-
tion may be allowed from the above-mentioned rule, the applicant must also
state his age.

Section 15th.— It is incumbent on pupils in the Forest Institute to lead a
correct moral life, to treat superiors with consideration, and obey their
orders, to wait on their instructions with attention and diligence, to carefully
execute the work which they receive to do, to preserve carefully such things
belonging to the Institute as may be entrusted to them, and they must
repay whatever they damage ; and in all things strictly conform to the laws
of the Institute.

Section 16th. — In case of the pupil not fulfilling what, according to the pre-
ceding sections, is incumbent upon him, and taking no heed of the warnings
given him by the director, such pupil may, after conference with the other
teachers, be expelled.

Section 17th. — In order to receive a proper certificate of dismission the pupil
must manifest in the public examination a well-marked acquaintance and ability
in the collective subjects of instruction mentioned in section 3rd, and must
have prepared a complete plan for the division of forests as well as for the
cutting of roads and the thinning of trees, and also for the laws of forest
cultivation.

The certificate of dismission must be made out by the college of teachers,
according to the formula laid down by the Forest Bureau, and be handed to
the pupil by the director.

Section 18th. — The plantation keeper in the Institute who has been ap-
pointed to reside there shall place himself at the disposal of the director for
carrying out the instruction appointed by the Forest Bureau.

Chapter II. — District Forest Schools.

Section 19th. — The aim of these forest schools is through gratis instruction
to form good foresters. These schools stand under the oversight of the
Forest Bureau, and each of them under the visitation of the forest inspector
in whose district of service the school is situated ; and each forest school
be presided over by a president, who is at the same time the teacher of the
school, but for his assistance in the instruction and the corresponding
practical exercises a forest overseer is to be appointed.

Section 20th.— The estates proposed for these forest schools, in the public
forests, in different parts of the country, shall be furnished with lecture halls
and the needful houses for the president and the forest overseer, as also
with lodgings for a certain number of pupils.

Section 21st. — Instruction in the forest schools shall be communicated in the
following subjects: — "Writing and the formation of a good running hand,
correct spelling as exercised by writing to dictation, arithmetic as far as the
rule of three and decimal fractions, together with a knowledge of the
Swedish system of money, weights, and measures ;

33

Palisading, together with measuring, map-drawing, and calculation of bis
own figures, according to different scales, together with the calculation of the
contents of the solid figures occurring in forest economy ;

The natural history of the forest trees of Sweden, and their requirements
with respect to soil, situation, &c. ;

The natural history of the most frequently occurring animals, noxious or
profitable to forests, and also the most important species of animals as respects
hunting ;

The general elements of forest economy to the extent that is required to
make plans for forest management, and to carry out those plans needful for
forest cultivation, to discharge the duties incumbent upon a forest servant,
and to decide upon the most suitable application of wood, — all which ought
chiefly to be taught by practical exercises and labours ;

The sawing (or cutting up) of timber, the burning of charcoal, and also tar ex-
traction and potash burning ; the regulations for hunting and forests, so far
as is demanded on the part of a forester ; the making up of such reports, lists
of day's-works, and so forth, as have to be given by a forester, together with an
acquaintance with the hunting of wild animals, and the art of shooting.

Section 22nd. — The course begins every year on the 1st October, when
pupils, according to the determination at the entrance examination, which
takes place in September, will be received in such numbers as circumstances
permit, and will undergo instruction, with the exception of a single week at
Christmas, until the following 15th June, during which time the pupils wil*
go through the course of study detailed in the preceding sections, together
with the corresponding practical exercises.

Nevertheless the Forest Department may, if the practical exercises in conse-
quence of climatic or other conditions of the locality where the school is situated
require an alteration in the above-stated arrangement of time, arrange the
same otherwise, provided that the time of instruction be not shortened.

Section 23rd. — For a certain number of pupils the proposed means of support
to a separately determined amount shall be allotted, according to the presi-
dent's examination, to the pupils who show themselves the most deserving of
this, and these shall likewise obtain lodging in the forest school.

Section 24f,h. — After the conclusion of the course of instruction a public dis-
missal examination in presence of the proper Inspector of Forests shall be
appointed for the pupils, when those who show themselves capable of under-
taking the duty of foresters shall obtain a certificate of dismissal.

Section 25th.— The president of the forest school must have gone through a-
full dismissal examination, and he afterwards must on his own responsibility
superintend the district.

It is incumbent upon him — 1st. To be responsible for the proper conduct
of the school, the preservation of good order, the morality and diligence of the
pupils ;and at the same time he shall be warden of the school buildings and
its other belongings.

2nd. That in all the branches of instruction laid down in section 21st he
shall conduct the instruction, and specially see to it that the pupils are
exercised practically for the purpose of obtaining sufficient knowledge and
ability as foresters.

3rd. That he shall draw quarterly from the person who has it in charge
from the king's majesty, and dispose properly of the money set apart for the

C

34

school; also that he shall submit an account in each year to the Forest
Administration, in the course of the following February one as to the application
of the money that has been allotted, and in the course of the following April
a yearly report as to the work of the school.

4th. To appoint an entrance examination for those seeking admission as
pupils, and to receive the pupils on the ground of the same; also im-
mediately after the close of the course to conduct a dismissal examination,
and thereupon to hand to the deserving pupils a certificate of dismissal ac-
cording to the formula provided by the Forest Administration.

Section 26th. — The Forest Overseer must have obtained a certificate of
dismissal from the forest school, must show dexterity in the carrying out of
forest works, must be able to write, and must be well reputed for steadiness
and good order ; he shall be under the order of the forest president, shall keep
and account to the president for all the instruments and furniture of the school,
exercise the closest oversight and watchfulness over the pupils, and he shall
be responsible for the practical exercises belonging to the instruction and the
exact execution of the work.

Section 27th. — Those who wish to enter as pupils in the forest school ought
to hand in to the president about the middle of September an autograph writing
applying for admission, accompanied by a certificate from the parish priest to
show that the applicant is between twenty and thirty years of age, and is of
good repute ; also a doctor's certificate as to his good and perfect form of
body, together with freedom from incurable disease ; also, if the applicant
has been previously in yearly service, a proper certificate of dismissal. And the
applicant must, at the entrance examination, show himself capable of reading
Swedish and Latin printed characters and manuscript ; he must write a good
hand, and be able to make use of the first four rules of arithmetic. In special
cases it- may be allowed to the Forest Administration to permit certain excep-
tions from the rule as to the age of the applicant.

Section 28th. — The pupils must be obedient to the commands of the overseer
and president, and must show diligence, order, and a good moral training.

Those who deviate from this must first be warned by the president; and if
they do not show any improvement, it belongs to the, president to expel them
from the school.

ORDINANCES TOR THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS or FORESTRY IN THE KINGDOM OF SWEDEN.

SECTION 29TH. — The director and the lector in the Forest Institute, together
with the president of the Forest School, in case either of them obtains a
place as hunting-master, obtains therewith in the class of payments a place
corresponding to his year of service, so soon as a vacancy occurs in that class.

Section 30th. — With respect to the appointment of> servants by the forest
institutions, and to freedom from service for those already appointed, also what
relates to mistakes made by servants, is all laid down in the Eoyal instructions
for forest administration and forest law, dated 19th November, 1869.

Section 31st. — With respect to the entrance and leaving of houses by the
forest institutions, the same law is in force with respect to the Forest Institute
which prevails with respect to like matters in the metropolis. This, together
with what respects forest schools, is prescribed in the above-named in-
structions. With respect to hunting- masters and Crown hunters, that
which is there laid down respecting hunting -masters shall be applicable to

35

presidents"; and what is laid down about the dwellings of Crown hunters shall
determine the same as to forest overseers.

Section 32nd. — These ordinances shall lie for consideration until the month of
October next, at which time the royal ordinances for forest institutions of the
25th May, 1860, cease to be in force; nevertheless, so that all shall begin before
the beginning of June next to arrange for the practical preparation which is
demanded for the entrance of pupils in the Forest Institute, while in June
month of the next year they shall undergo the entrance examination, in the
order prescribed in the last-named ordinances.

All whom this concerns have to take note of the same till further advised.
We have signed this, and caused it to be confirmed with our royal seal.

C. F. WAERN, Stockholm Palace, 15th Sept., 1871. (Signed) CHAULES.

At the Forest Institute the studies embrace physical science,
mathematics, forest engineering, and forest laws. Under the first head
is included instruction in mineralogy, geognosy, meteorology, in-
organic and organic chemistry, vegetable physiology, botany, and the
botany of forests, including plants found in the forests of Sweden, and
that of foreign trees, shrubs, and bushes which may be cultivated in
Sweden in the open air. In connection with mathematics instruction
is given in algebra and geometry, spherical trigonometry, land survey-
ing, and levelling, with exercises in the use of instruments and
calculations employed to obtain exact as well as proximate results,
and in the preparation of geometrical diagrams, plans, and projections,
and the principles followed in giving geometrical descriptions.

The instructions in forest economy embrace —

1. Sylviculture : the culiure, maintenance, and protection of woods ;
and as introductory to this, the leading features of the statistics and
history of Swedish forests, and the forest literature of Sweden and
of other lands.

2. Forest Management, with a special application of this to the
forests of Sweden ; and as introductory to this, the leading features and
progressive development of the theory and practical management of
forests.

3. Forest Technology : the utilization of forest products, the felling
and transport of wood, the dressing and cutting of timber, and the
preparation of secondary products.

4. Forest Mathematics : the valuation and calculation of cubic
measurements of wood in trees and in woods, natural and artificial, of
the age and of the annual increase in cubic contents of trees, and the
different methods followed in the valuation . of forests, or forest
statistics, the valuation of forests for purchase, excambre or exchange,
division of estates left in heritage, exappropriation, &c. ; forest
architecture and engineering, comprising the construction of houses,
watercourses or dams, roads, bridges, &c., required by the necessities

36

of forest technology; and exercises in the solution of mathematical
problems to be met with in forest economy, but which cannot bs classed
under forest management.

5. Science of Forest Administration : general basis of the tenure
of woods, use to be made of reports of work and results in forest
managementj&c. ; forest book-keeping.

6. Science of the Chase : study of Scandinavian quadrupeds and birds,
treated as game, and of the methods of hunting them and of the
capture of them followed.

7. Theory of Shooting : shooting at fixed objects and at objects in
motion, and theory of portable firearms.

8. Cartographic principles to be followed in the drawing and pre-
paration of forest charts.

9. Political Economy and Science of Finance, with a special appli-
cation of these to forest economy.

Under the head of forest laws instruction is given in financial
and economic legislation in their general relations to functionaries,
and those employed; in regard to the central administration and
local authorities and officials, with whom functionaries and employes
and forest agents may have occasion to come into communication ;
in regard to the different categories of woods and forests ; in
regard to legal partitions of these when required ; in regard to the
distribution, assessment of taxes, reduction and modification of
them ; in regard to estimates of contents in cases of exchange or
excambre, and alteration of boundaries or ex appropriation ; to
duties of drainage and of fencing, and of 'taking charge of domestic
animals.

Students in the first year of their studies during the autumn session
spend weekly in the following classes the number of hours
stated : —

Sylviculture . . . .6 hours a week.

Cartography . . • . 2 ,

Elementary Mathematics , .6 „

Works of Forest Management . .6 „
Structure and Physiology of Plants, and

technical uses of trees . .8 „

Chemistry . . . .2 „

Physical Science . . . 1

Legislation . . . .3 „

Political Economy . . .1 }j

In all 35

37

And in the spring session following, i. e., of the first year of their
attendance in the class study of

Sylviculture . . . . ' 6 hours a week.

Cartography . /. . .2 „

Forest Mathematics . . . ' 4 „
Principles of Land Surveying and of

Levelling . . . .2 „

Forest Management . . .6 „

Forest Botany . . . .4 ,,

Ornithology . . . .3 „

Exercise in Shooting . . 1 • „

Chemistry . . . .2 „

Physical Science . . .1 ,,

Legislation . . . .3 „

Political Economy . . ] „

In all . . . 35

In the second year of their attendance during the autumn session
they spend in the class study of —

Forest Technology . . .6 hours a week.

Cartography . . . .2 ,,

Forest Mathematics . . .4 „

Drawing of Geometric Diagrams . 2 „

Works of Forest Management . .6 „

Mazology . . . ,4 „

Entomology .. . . .4 „

Legislation . . . .3 „

Chemistry . . . .2 „

Physical Science . . .1 „

Political Economy . . . 1 „

In all . . . . 35 -,,

And in the spring session of this college year in the class study of —

Forest Technology . . .6 hours a week.

Cartography . . . .2 ,,

Management of Forests . .4 „

Forest. Architecture . . .3 ,,

Works of Forest Management . .5 ,,

Entomology . . . .4 „

Carried forward 24

38

Brought forward . . .24 hours a week.

Science of the Chase and Exercise in

Shooting . . 4 „

Forest Administration . . .3 „

Chemistry . . . .2 „

Physical Science . . .1 ,,

Political Economy . . .1 „

In all . '• . •'• . .35

In the Journal of Forestry, vol. i., jJp. 756—761, 837—842, are
given the opinions of foresters in Germany in regard to the respective
advantages of having schools of forestry incorporated in Universities
or Polytechnical Institutes, and of havirig them maintained as separate
exclusively professional schools. In Sweden this subject has not
been ignored.

The National University, deservedly famous both for its past and its
present position among the schools of learning in Europe, is situated
at Upsala, another is at Lund, and there is' in Stockholm, near
the Observatory, at the upper end of D rotting Gatan, or rather of
Kungs Backen, which is a continuation of it, a well-equipped
Technological School, and in a separate building by the side of it
a School of Mines — both of late erection ; and some saving of
expense and economizing of working power might have been effected
probably by the Forest Institute having been connected with these ; but
in all the circumstances of the case it was considered preferable that it
should be continued on its present site and in its existing condition.

In Sweden education is universal. u Statistics show that at the
present time even of criminals of all ages only three per cent, —
probably mostly minors- — are totally without school training ; and the
University of Upsala has done much to secure for all classes of the
community a high degree of education. For admission to study
at the Forest Institute, at the Technological School, at the School of
Mines, or at the University, the requirement is the same. It consists
in the production of a certificate of having passed with approval the
examination in languages, mathematics, natural history, and physical
science required of students leaving the secondary or intermediate
schools.

In the School of Forestry, as in the University and other institu-
tions, no fees are charged ; the instruction is free, and bursaries are
provided for those who' may require such aid ; the board, lodging,
and travelling expenses of the students when they are sent for
practice in the forest are provided for ; where steamboats and railways
fail them, ponies are provided if practicable and desirable ; their
lodgings and food in these excursions are plain, and in some cases the

39

latter lias to be taken with them or sent on before ; they are exercised
in planting, felling, measuring, estimating, and building; and the
excursion is enjoyed as a holiday. On completing their curriculum
and receiving a satisfactory certificate they are entitled to employment
in the Government service, but they are free to accept private engage-
ments. In the public service they have rank corresponding with that
of officers in the army, and better pay ; promotion follows according to
length of service, but may be anticipated by special appointment
given by the Government on recommendation by superiors.

As is the case in the University, the instruction is communicated by
lectures and by extempore addresses from notes, definitions being
stated slowly and distinctly, that they may be taken down by the
students. Kepetitions or examinations are held weekly. In tbese,
which are distinct from the daily recapitulation of preceding days'
lectures, the students are questioned, but questioned not with a view to
ascertain whether they have attended to what was said, but to ascertain
whether they have understood this aright, — testing thus the way in
which the professor has done his part of the duty, rather than testing
the way in which the student has done his part.

In the arboretum the students are made acquainted with the habit of
different trees, and they are exercised in nursery work, forming beds,
sowing seeds, and transplanting into second beds young seedlings.
The students on leaving receive a certificate from the Forest Institute,
in which it is certified that he has undergone the required examinations
in forest taxation, forest management, forest technology, forest architec-
ture, in the mathematics required in forestry, land surveying, game
and forest laws, forest administration and book-keeping, political or
national economy, meteorology and soils, chemistry, physics, forest
botany and vegetable physiology, forest entomology, mazology, and
ornithology, usages in hunting and shooting, and in chart-drawing;
and that throughout the time of attendance at the Institute his
application, progress, and conduct have been good, bad, or indifferent,
as the case might be. This is signed by the director, the professors of
forest economy and mathematics, of botany, and of zoology, and
the teachers of game and forest law, of chemistry and physics, and of
political economy. There are three degrees of excellence, characterized
by appropriate designations, such as commendable, good, and passable,
used in the certificate in regard to the different qualifications
certified.

About 21,000 kroner (about ^1,125) are annually appropriated to
meet the expenses of the Forest Institute.

Here, as in Germany, it seems to be acted on as a principle that
every one employed in the service of his country should be provided
with the best possible education and instruction required for the

40

efficient discharge of his duties ; hence the liberal spirit in which
instruction is given without any payment of fees.

The Forest Schools spoken of in contradistinction to the Skogs
Instituten, or Forest Institute, are dispersed throughout forest
districts, of which there are several supported by Government. Besides
these arrangements, pupils in the Falk-school, or common schools,
receive instruction in horticulture and tree planting. From the
report of 1807 it appears that in that year 21,850 pupils re-
ceived such instruction.

In illustration of what is stated in section 29, it may be mentioned
that as in the forest service of India in more than one of the
countries in northern Europe, all who go through the prescribed
training are entitled to appointments in the service of the State
under certain conditions.

Mr. Quin, supervisor of cutters' official measures of timber at
Quebec, was commissioned in 1861 to visit Europe to impart and ob-
tain information in regard to the timber trade. He embodied in his
report the following statement of the prices, &c., at Swedish ports : —

PBICES OF SWEDISH TIMBER AND DEALS ON THE 20rn MARCH, 1861,
FREE ON BOARD.

GOTHENBURG. Mixed. Thirds.

Planlcs, Deals, Battens, and Boards. £ s. d. £ s. d.

Redwood, 3 x 11, 3x 9, 4x9, &2x 9, per St. Ptg. std., 8 15 0 7 10 0

3 x 8, 3 x 7, 2i x 7, & 2| x 9 „ 7 15 0 6 10 0

„ 2J x 6 and under sizes ... „ 750600

Ux9&8,Hx9,8&7,&lx9,8,&7 „ 650 500

NORRKOPING, GEFLE, SODERHAMN, LJUSNE, AND PORTS OF SIMILAR PRODUCTION.

Planks, Deals, Battens, and Boards.

Redwood, 3 x 11. 3 x 9, 4 x 9, & 2 x 9. per St. Ptg. std., 7 10 0 6 10 0

3 x 8, 3 x 7, 2| x 7, & 2i x 9 „ 6 10 0 5 10 0

„ 2& x 6, & under sizes ... „ 600 500

„ Hx9&8,Hx9,8&7,&lx9,8&7 „ 550 400

SUNDSVALL, HERNOSAND, NYLAND, AND PORTS OP SIMILAR PRODUCTION.

Planks, Deals, Baftens, and Boards.

Redwood, 3 x 11, 3 x 9. 4 x 9, & 2 x 9, per St. Ptg. std. 700 600

3x8, 3x7, 2£x7,&2ix9 „ 46 0 0 500

„ 24 x 6, and under sizes ... „ 6 10 0 4 10 0

Iix9,8&7,lix9,8&7,&lx9,8&7 „ 500 400

SKELLEFTEA, LULEA, PITEA, AND PORTS OF SIMILAR PRODUCTION.

Planks, Deals, Battens, and Boards.

Redwood, 3 x 11, 3 x 9, 4 x 9, & 2 x 9, per St. Ptg. std. 6100 5 10 0

3 x 8, 3 x 7, 2£ x 7, & 2$ x 9 „ 5 10 0 4 10 0

„ 2| x 6, and under sizes ... „ 500400

Iix9,8&7,lix9,8&7,&lx9,8&7 „ 400 3 10 0

SUNDSVALL, HUDIKSVALL, NYHAMN, NYLAND, &C.

Timber. £ 8. d.

Best Red«ood Square Timber, 9 to 14 in. & up., 30 to 31 ft. ay. 1 8 0 per Id.
Best Redwood „ 9 to 13 „ „ 26&27 „ 160 „
Red Deals or Battens, for stowage only 6 10 Opr. std.

SK.ELLEFTEA, LULEA, PITEA, &C.

Timber.

Best Redwood Timber, 9 to 13 in. sq., av. 20 to 22 feet per pc. 1 1 0 per Id.
Under 9 inches and Whitewood, 5s. per load less.

IV.— FINLAND.

IN Finland, as in Sweden, may be studied endeavours to "bring the
management of extensive forests into accordance with the suggestions
of modem forest science crowned with considerable success. But to
the student of forest economy Finland also is interesting as supplying
an opportunity of studying an antiquated treatment of forests, known in
France as Sartage, here as Roehden, in Sweden as Svcedanje, and in
India as Kumari, &c., which still is practised in some parts of the
country, but is being abandoned, and which in India has been
much condemned by officials in the forest service.

As St. Petersburg abuts on Finland, and a railway from that city
traverses the southern coasts of the Grand Duchy, it may be entered
most easily from that city ; or it may be entered by the route which
this season I followed, proceeding by steamer from Stockholm to
Hango, or to Abo, pronounced Obo, or to Helsingfois, and thence by
railway to St. Petersburg, the traveller returning, if so disposed, by
steamer to those places and Stockholm.

I arrived too late by an hour to take the train from Abo, and again
too late by two hours to take the day train from Helsingfors. I kept by
the steamer, and proceeded by her to St. Petersburg in preference to
travelling by a night train.

In travelling by* railway the traveller may at different stations
penetrate some way into the country by branch lines. Some of the
interesting localities which may be thus visited I had visited before ;
with others I had been familiar for many years.

In the Journal of Forestry, vol. i., pp. 545 — 551, 701 — 705, is an
account of the Finnish School of Forestry, which is situated at Evois.

From Eilhimski a branch line goes to Tavastehuis, which may be
reached in three hours from Helsingfors, or in longer time from
either of the other ports named. Thence a journey of some fifty
versts (or thirty-three miles) by chaise — the one-horse conveyance of
the country — will take the traveller to Evors. The journey will occupy
about six hours. It leads through the post stations of Heinokangar,
Syrjantaka, Yso-Eve, and Evon Opista. The charge is ten penni per

42

verst, or one mark, equal to tenpence sterling, per Finnish mile of
ten versts, or between six and seven miles English. At the hotel
(Hotel Nordin) every assistance will be courteously given to the
traveller.

At Wyborg there may be found facilities for visiting the famous
Falls of Imatra. These I visited many years ago, long before these
facilities were created ; and I have given an account of my visit to
them in a volume on the " Hydrology of South Africa," pp. 24 — 26.

In the issue of the Queen, the Lady's Newspaper, for October 12
last, is a cut representing a sketch of the falls, but one which I would
never have recognised as such. It is accompanied by the following
account of them : —

" Fir land, with its boundary of bold and precipitous granite cliffs, and its
magnificent forest, lake, and mountain scenery, may be called the Switzerland
of Scandinavia, and is a favourite resort for Russian tourists during the short
but genial northern summer. One of the most frequented sights are the
Imatra Rapids, which have been made easily accessible by a company which
provides every accommodation for travellers. The rapids are formed by the
river Wuoksi, which joins the Lake Saima with Lake Ladoga. On its way it
has to traverse the mountain side of Salpansfelka, in a furrow 140 feet wide.
Through this narrow channel of about three thousand feet length, with a fall
of sixty-three feet, sixty-seven millions of cubic feet of water force their way
every hour; and the grandness of the sight may be imagined when we learn
that within the same time the Niagara Fall sends only about forty-two million
cubic feet into the basin below.

" High above the present bed of the rapids the roaring waters have hollowed
out immense caverns in the adjoining rock, which show the progress of the
river tunnelling from immemorial times. The communication between the
two banks is effected by means of a wire rope, 170 feet long, and only three
and three-eighths of an inch in diameter, along which a basket runs,with room
for two passengers. On the spot where the rush of the waters has attained its
greatest velocity, a pavilion erected on a rock affords shelter to enjoy the sight
iu comparative comfort."

A journey of four hours by rail will bring the traveller from Wyborg
to St. Petersburg.

A perusal of what has been stated in the article on the School of
Forestry at Evois, which appeared in this Journal last year (vol. i., pp.
545 — 551 and 701 — 707), may suffice to give some idea of the present
state of forestry in Finland ; and therefore here there is brought under
consideration only the practice of Roehden, as it is there called, that
of burning a portion of the forest for the temporary culture of
cereals, differing thus from the extensive clearing away of forests
for permanent occupation and agriculture. It consists in simply
cutting down the trees on a spot which the people design to cultivate,
and burning upon this the felled trees, that the ground may be
fertilized with the ashes. The ground is then sown with rye, barley,

43

&c., or, if very fertile, with oats and buckwheat, after which it is
abandoned, to be again covered with forests, or to lie waste.

The evils produced by this course of procedure will afterwards
appear. In another connection I have stated : —

From what is said by W. von Schubert in his " Eesagenom Sverige Norrige,
Lappland, &c.," published in Stockholm in 1823, in 3 vols. 8vo. ; and from
what is said by Lars Levi Laestadius, in his work entitled " Om Mojligheten
och Fordelen af allmanna Uppodlingar i Lappmarken," published in Stock-
holm in 1824, it appears that the practice of burning over woodland at once to
clear and to manure the ground, and from other incidental references to it,
is still a recognised usage in Swedish husbandry.

There it is known as Svcedanje, which Swedish designation is
also in use in Finland, which was formerly a Swedish province.
Though used in Norrland in Sweden as a preparation for crops
of forage or grain, it is employed in Lapland more frequently to
secure an abundant growth of pasturage, which follows in two or
three years after the fire ; and it is sometimes resorted to as a means
of driving the Laplanders and their reindeer from the vicinity of the
grass grounds and the haystacks of the Swedish backwoodsman, to
which they are dangerous neighbours. The forest rapidly recovers
itself, but it is generally a generation or more before the reindeer
moss grows again. When the forest consists of pine (tall) the ground,
instead of being rendered fertile by the process, becomes hopelessly
barren, and for a long time afterwards produces nothing but weeds
and briars. I have elsewhere had occasion to remark, —

" It is a practice," says M. Parade, formerly Director of the School of
Forestry at Nancy, " extremement ancienne." And such it appears to have been
in France ; but there may be claimed for it an antiquity far greater than is
indicated by the practice of it in France, in Sweden, or in Finland ; and
amongst the conservative tribes of India it has been practised to an extent
which makes the sartage of France, the roehden of Finland, and the svcsdanje
of Sweden appear as mere childish play. In the Canara district it is known
as kumari. In a document issued by the Board of Revenue in India, in 1859,
it is stated that, in some parts of Bekal, which is the most southerly of the
taluks of Canara, kumari cutting forms part of the business of the ordinary
ryots, and as many as 25,746, or one-sixth of the population, are supposed to
be engaged in it; bnt to the north of that taluk it is carried on by the jungle
tribes of Malai Kadeos and Mahratas to the number of 59,500. Here we have
upwards of 85,000 men felling, burning, and destroying forests, for the sake
generally of one — or at most of two crops — sometimes, but rarely, of three.
After which the spot is deserted until the jungle is sufficiently high to tempt
the kumari cutter to renew the process.

By this practice vast quantities of most valuable timber have been
destroyed.

A good crop of hill rice, or Nullet, is obtained in the first year after the
consumption of the wood, a small crop is taken off the ground in the
second year, and sometimes in the third, after which, as has been stated, the

44

spot is deserted. In the south, where land is more scarce compared
with the population, the same land is cultivated with kumari anew in
12, 10, or 7 years ; but in North Canara, the virgin forest, or old kumari,
which has not been cultivated within the memory of man, is generally selected
for the operation.

1 This rude system of culture,' says Dr. Gleghorn, formerly Conservator of
Forests in the Presidency of Madras, ' prevails under various names in dif-
ferent eastern countries. It is called kumari in Mysore and Canara, pounam
in Malabar, punaka in Salem, chena in Ceylon.'

The name kumari is peculiar to the Canara and the Mysore districts. It
is thus described in an extract from the Proceedings of the Board of Revenue :
—'The name is given to cultivation which takes place in first clearings. A
hill-side is always selected, on the slopes of which a space is cleared at the
end of the year. The wood is left to dry till the following March Or April,
and then burned. In most localities the seed is sown in the ashes on the fall
of the first rains, without the soil being touched by implement of any kind ;
but in the taluk of Bekal the land is ploughed. The only further operations
are weeding and fencing. The crop is gathered towards the end of the year,
and the produce is stated to be at least double that which could be obtained
under the ordinary modes of cultivation/

Gabriel Rein, in a volume entitled Statistick Techning of Stor-
furstenddmet Finland, third edition, 1853, states that from very ancient
times the Finns had practised agriculture, and for centuries this
has been their chief means of support; and this more so as the
supplies derived from hunting and fishing became diminished.
It is to the honour of the Finnish people that by them agriculture
has been carried to the most northern boundaries of their country,
and has thus elevated or prepared for a higher state of civilization the'
inhabitants of those regions. And there it may be seen practised by
the most northern agriculturists about Altengard in Norway, where
the Finns are called Quains, the designation Finn being there given to
Laplanders.

The soil of Finland is naturally unsuitable for a highly developed
system of agriculture, partly in consequence of the stony character of
the ground, partly in consequence of the poor character of that
soil requiring the labour of years to fit it for superior culture, and
partly in consequence of the sparseness of the population ; and such
was everywhere originally the condition of the country. So far back
as history reaches, the Finnish people have carried out this kind of
nomadic use of the soil, mode of culture which could be applied
for a short time to one portion of the land, and then, this being
abandoned, be applied to another.

The designation Svedanje is derived from Sveda, to scorch or burn,
or burn off. This term and the corresponding term Svedja seemed to

45

be applied exclusively to this mode of forest clearing with a view to
temporary agriculture. In the recent cases of this all the trees
growing on a piece of ground are cut down, allowed to dry, and
burned. The field is then ploughed, or rather scratched with a rude
harrow, whereby it is loosened and intermixed with the ashes. It is
next sown with rye, barley, or other seed. If the earth proves
somewhat fertile, it is sown next year with oats, and it may be after-
wards with buckwheat. After this last crop has been reaped, the
ground is abandoned and left to rest till it be again overgrown with
trees.

Ofttimes it is the case that through the culture and removal of
these crops the soil becomes so exhausted that for many years no
trees are produced, and being used for pasturage, the cattle not only
grazing on the selfsame grass, but browsing on seedling trees as they
may make their appearance, the growth of these is entirely prevented.
The forests have thus been greatly diminished, and the products of the
forest being of great importance to Finland, the Government has
endeavoured to limit as much as possible this mode of culture. In
consequence of this, and the introduction of improved agriculture,
Svedja has been greatly diminished. It is practised now to a very
limited extent in the Ian or district of Nyland, in which Helsingfors is
situated, and that of Abo, and throughout the greater part of Tavastehuis
Ian to the north-east and north of these districts, and of Wasa, on the
coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, and the greater portion of the Uleaborg
Ian. It may be said to be in these districts practised only occasionally,
as on the uprooting of clumps of trees growing in the middle of a field
or meadow, or with a view to preparing pasture land for cattle. Con-
sequently the product of Svedja in these districts is small, very
small in comparison with that obtained by the usual mode of agricul-
ture, kvedja is not practised now in the eastern lans, except in those
la'ns near the coast and in the south, where, for example, in the south-
west of Wyborg Ian it is only occasionally practised ; and at Borga, Wy-
borg, and Nykyrka it has been altogether abandoned. On the shores
of Lake Ladoga it, is strictly prohibited, in consequence of the scarcity,
of wood. In most other parts of the Ian where it is still practised
this is done as a necessary and at present unavoidable means of
support. The produce of it in Sackjarvi is in proportion to that
otherwise obtained as 1 to 3. In other places it is as 1 to 2. In St.
Michael's further to the west it begins to be limited. The poverty of
the land and the limited produce yielded by regular agriculture lead
to the greater use of Svedja.

It is in consequence of the injurious effects of the practice that it
has been thus limited.

46

This mode of culture has been observed to impoverish the soil so
much that the forest destroyed is not alw ays replaced by a new growth,
and now only in districts where the uneven and stony condition of
the ground renders it difficult to carry out regular husbandry does
this mode of culture still prevail.

Some of the evils resulting from the similar practice in India,
known as Kumari, are detailed in reports embodied in the volume
entitled, " The Forests and Gardens of South India," by Dr. Cleghorn.
There are two forms of it which have been utilized in France, known
respectively as Sartage a feu courant and Sartage a feu convert.

" Apart from the destruction of the trees and the laying bare of the
soil," says Marsh, " and consequently the free admission of sun, rain,
and air, to the ground, the fire of itself exerts an important influence on
its texture and condition. It cracks and even sometimes pulverizes the
rocks and stones on or near the surface ; it consumes a portion of the
half-decayed vegetable mould which seemed to hold its mineral parti-
cles together, and to retain the water of precipitation, and thus it
loosens, pulverizes, and dries the earth ; it destroys reptiles, insects,
and worms, with their eggs, and the seeds of trees and of smaller
plants ; it supplies in the ashes which it deposits on the surface
important elements for the growth of a new forest clothing, as well as
of the usual objects of agricultural industry ; and by the changes thus
produced it fits the ground for the reception of a vegetation different
in character from that which had spontaneously covered it. These
new conditions help to explain the natural succession of forest crops,
so generally observed in all woods cleared by fire and then abandoned."

V.-NORTHERN RUSSIA.

THE routes to St. Petersburg from Britain are numerous. During the
summer season there is scarcely a day in the week excepting Sunday
on which a steamer is not leaving some British port for St. Petersburg
in times of settled peace, and the voyage is always made within the
week ; and by railway and steamer it may be reached in less time by
Ostend, Antwerp, or Rotterdam and Cologne, by Hamburg and Berlin,
or by the route through Sweden and Finland.

A simple division of Kussia into well-defined regions has been
adopted or devised by Mackenzie Wallace, and in accordance with this
he has prefixed to the second volume of his work on Eussia a map of
Russia in Europe, in which he represents what he calls the Forest
Zone as extending in width from the whole breadth of Finland,
and following to some extent the 60° parallel of latitude, the latitude
of St. Petersburg, to the Ural Mountains, and bounded on the north
by Lapland, the North Sea, and the country of the Samoyedes. To
the south of it is the northern agricultural zone, extending from the
Baltic, Prussia, and Poland, to and a little beyond the Ural
Mountains, contracting considerably in breadth and stretching more
northwards in its eastern half. To the south of this is the southern
agricultural zone, or black earth zone, beyond which is the steppe
zone; and beyond this to the south-east is the pastoral region, to the
north of the Caspian, the whole spreading in a fan-like figure as
from a pivot in the latitude of 55 Q N. in Asiatic Russia.

In these different regions of the extensive Empire of Russia, com-
pared with which the whole of Western Europe may seem like a
province, may be studied in operation all the varied methods of ex-
ploitation from their first development to their most advanced form.
Eoeden, as it is called in Finland, the Kumari of India, the Sartage
of France, is also to be met with in the north, but this can scarcely
with propriety be designated forest exploitation. But there we find
dominant the primitive form of forest exploitation, — that known in
France sometimes as Furetage, but more generally as Jardinage, a
mode of exploitation followed in several British colonies, and entail-
ing upon them, I fear, most disastrous consequences.

48

The designation Furetage has been derived from furet, a ferret,
and it has been given, I presume, in allusion to the forester seeking
out or ferreting out the tree he requires, and felling it alone ; but it is
more generally called Jardinage, a word derived fromjardin, a garden.
This designation may have been given from the similitude of the
operation to that of the gardener who gathers here and there the pot-
herbs most advanced in condition, or in immediate danger of going to
seed ; and when carried out extensively and long it produces in the
forest an appearance not unlike that of the half- cleared kitchen-
garden, in which may be seen bean-stalks, void places, cabbage stocks,
half-reaped beds of turnips, of carrots, of onions, with withering pea
straw hanging from stakes inserted for its support when it was
fresh and young, and weeds of various kinds growing between.
This mode of operation is not confined to extensive forests, though
practised in these extensively in Russia and in America, as well as in
Britain and British dependencies. It is one well known to all foresters
who have to manage ornamental plantations, in the removal from
these of trees showing symptoms of decay, or of others in a good
growing condition deemed suitable for the market or required for use
and doomed to 'the axe, while the trees growing around are spared.

In the central zones we meet with a more advanced form of forest
management, and in the southern zone we meet with forest extension
carried on to sue!} an extent as to give a character to the forest economy
of the region.

It is to the forests and forest economy of the northern region alone
to which attention has now to be directed.

I should have enjoyed having an opportunity personally to visit this
region with the operations on which I have long been acquainted ;
but while I was inquiring about the arrangement of steamers for
Lake Onega, Professor Schafranoff put into my hands a printed
narrative by Mr. Judrae of a journey which he made to and beyond
that region, with qualifications and facilities for obtaining information
far greater than mine, which rendered my journey unnecessary. Of
part of this narrative the following is a translation : —

" The first steamer of the season (1867) proceeding from St. Peters-
burg to Petrozavodsk, sailed on the 30fch May (Old Style), having
been prevented from sailing earlier by the ice on the Neva and Lake
Ladoga. With fine, somewhat warm weather, we left the capital, and
a few hours' hard steaming against the current brought us to Lake
Ladoga ; but scarcely had we got 30 versts (twenty miles) from St.
Petersburg when ice began to meet us, some of it in sheets of a very
large size ; and it was getting dark. The keen north-east wind made
itself felt ; and looking to the horizon there stretched out before us a
sea of unbroken or of congealed fields of ice ; the steamer, however,

49

resolutely advanced. I took refuge in the cabin from the intolerable
cold, but after a few minutes I hastened on deck in consequence of
the steamer being "stopped. There was ice in immense shoals ahead
of us, so that to go on in the course we were following would have risked
damage to our paddle-wheels, whereby we should have been placed in
an awkward condition amongst the ice floes of the Ladoga. At length
the order was given to cast the anchor and wait for the day. In a few
minutes we were fast, and a strangely contrasting stillness and
silence pervaded the vessel, while a magnificent scene was stretching
around us in all directions. Far as the eye could see were open spaces
of water and sheets of ice commingled, and whole schools of black
seals moving backward and forward on the floating masses, while with
the cold wind were combined black clouds and a murky sky, although
it was now the 31st of May (0. S.), the 12th day of June in lands
where the New Style has been introduced.

" Next day, the steamer by some way or another got through Lake
Ladoga, and entered the river Svir. Steaming along we found every-
where on the banks on both sides, woods, woods, woods. From the
deck of the vessels could only be noticed firs and pines and birches,
although in some parts of the government of Olonetz there still grew
the Norway maple, the lime, the elm, and other kinds of trees.

" Now we passed on the left bank of the river the town of Lodenoi-
Pole, founded by Peter the Great, and formerly a naval dockyard.
A few hours more and we reached Vosnecenya, one of the principal
centres of inland navigation by a system of canals, of which there
are two or three connecting the Volga with the Baltic.

" The village of Vosnecenya is situated on the Svir as it issues from
the Lake Onega, and it is called by the inhabitants the Petersburg Gate.

" It was impracticable to go further by the steamer, as the ice in
this lake had not yet broken up ; consequently I had to travel to Petro-
zavodsk by horse, which I did by a very picturesque route by the
western shore. From Vosnecenya to Petrozavodsk by the so-called
Vilegarskoi road is 130 versts, or 86 miles.

" The first thing which interested me was the Forest-Product Manu-
factory of Mr. Baelaeff, well known in all these northern parts,, It is
situated about seven versts from Vosnecenya.

" The lovely view presented by the Fabrique and the buildings around
leads me to conclude that it must be a profitable property, yielding
a considerable revenue. It is built in a situation very convenient for
the sale of the products ; near to Vosnecenya, where there is a great
consumption of tar in caulking vessels. Hitherto there could only
be obtained black burnt tar, which is not quite suitable for the
purpose, and the demand for it was riot great; but now they are

D

50

constructing new brick furnaces for the production of what is called
red tar, from the sale of which they will, without doubt, obtain
considerable profits.

" There is not a scientific or special manufacturer employed, but
the works are under the management of an able workman ; by this
arrangement it is supposed a great saving is effected. The Fabrique
contains at present several furnaces, by which are obtained tar,
turpentine, and other products from pine wood, Besides these,
there are furnaces for rectifying turpentine and for making pyro-
ligneous acid. The latter product is obtained from birch wood by a
process of dry distillation. The greater part of this product is
taken to St. Petersburg, but the greater part of the red tar commands
a sale in the locality.

"The following are details relating to the manufacture of such
articles obtained on the spot. From a cubic fathom of wood are
obtained 25 poods of black tar, equal to 900 Ibs. English, and two
poods or 72 Ibs. of turpentine ; and in the manufacture they consume
half a cubic foot of firewood.

"From a square fathom of birch they obtain 250 [?] poods of pyro-
ligneous acid.

" How far these figures indicate the reasonableness and propriety
of the measures adopted may be determined by a comparison of
them with results obtained by scientific operations, and with the
returns made by other works of the same kind elsewhere. The
proprietor was desirous of impressing on me that the establishment is
not remunerative, and hardly returns the working expenditure. The
quantity of acid manufactured is some hundred tons more than
suffices to meet the demand for it, and the turpentine is scarcely
equal in quality to what is required in the market, and thus he
accounted for the unremunerative character of the works.

"Between the hills are occasionally met with rivers or rivulets
flowing into Lake Onega. The current of these is very rapid in conse-
quence of the steep declivity of the ground towards the lake ; and
they present generally the characteristics of mountain streams. The
most striking feature of the country is the great quantity of boulders
upon its surface, the number of which, if stated, would be almost
incredible. They consist exchisively of granite and other primary
or transition formations, covered partially by drift, in which is a red
sand in considerable quantity. There are also projecting from the
ground granite hills in whole or in part quite bare, or covered only
with lichens. Having examined the works I proceeded further. On
the right hand was a magnificent view of the Onega lake, the breadth
of which at this place is above 80 versts (about 54 miles). On the left

51

side of the road were hills, the continuation of those of Finland, which
pass into the government of Olonetz, but fall away towards the
south till they present an altitude not exceeding 420 feet above the
level of the country around. The surface of the hills seen from this
point is covered with forests, which consist of four different kinds of
trees, intermixed in varying proportions — fir, pine, birch, and aspen.
The height of these trees, judging by the eye, seemed to be low compared
with like vegetable productions. The only impression I have retained of
the course of the whole journey to Petrozavodsk with such opportu-
nities of observation as I had, was a feeling that I had gotten into a
comparatively northern region, and that I must be nearing the polar
circle ; granite hills and interminable forests, a stony soil, with abun-
dance of waters but a sparse population — these are my remembrances
of my first acquaintance with the government of Olonetz.

" Every twenty or thirty versts (14 and 20 miles) there were small
villages inhabited by Karrells, a tribe of Finns who have retained
the Finnish language, but in every other respect they are like the
population from Novgorod found in the south and east and in parts
of the central portion of this government.

" Speaking generally, the first acquaintance of one with the country
leads to the conclusion that the government of Olonetz is as poor in
works employing human industrial labour as it is rich in natural pro-
ductions, amongst which the first place must be assigned to those of
the forests. In Petrozavodsk I was enabled to collect from records by
officials who had formerly the management of the forests, and of all
matters relating to the country, information of which the following is
a summary.

"The government of Olonetz lies between 60° 21' and 65Q 16' 1ST.
Lat., and 47° 21' and 59° 36' E. from the meridian of Faro, corre-
sponding to about 309 and 409 E. of Greenwich. It has an area of 2,785
square geographical miles, or 14,026,320 desatins. Of this area
forests cover approximately ten millions of desatins, or five-sevenths of
the whole. After deducting 257,000 desatins of arable land, and
88 desatins of pasture land, the rest is composed of rivers, lakes,
swamps, and other unproductive places. The whole population,
including both sexes , amounts to 301,290; consequently there is for
each man 47 desatins of surface, consisting of —

1-14 desatins of arable and pasture land,

35' L 9 of forests; and

10-67 of lake and river.

" This proportion of the population to the area is indicative of the
poverty of the territory. The forests belonging to the Imperial
Domaines measure 8,774,419 desatins and 1,048 square fathoms, or

52

about 1,740 square geographical miles, which amounts to about two-
thirds of the whole area of the government. In 1865 the revenue
derived directly from the forests amounted to 327,993 roubles,* and
by extra fellings 9,607 roubles 90 kopecs; in all 337,540-90 roubles.
According to calculation each desatin on an average yielded a revenue
of 3*84 roubles. In subsequent years the revenue was considerably
diminished in consequence of the saw-mills not working.

" In so far as forests are concerned, the importance of the govern-
ment of Olonetz is seen more in view of the future than in relation
to the present. Having several navigable outlets, it may be con-
sidered a reserve of forests available not for Eussia only, but for
Europe.

" Looking into the accounts of revenue derived from these forests,
we find that almost 45 per cent, of the revenue is the proceeds from
the sale of timber taken to the saw-mills. In 1865 there were sold
to seven of these 237,783 logs for the sum of 98,359 roubles 59J
kopecs, and to the English Onega Company, having its fabrique on the
Biver Onega in the government of Archangel — but preparing at the
present time forest material in the district of Kargopole in the
government of Olonetz, logs amounting in value to 52,585 roubles ;
in all 150,944 roubles 59^ kopecs.

" From what has been said it follows that the saw-mills, which are
the principal purchasers, are indispensable for the sale of timber ;
and that but .for these there would be but a small sale of timber, more
particularly in the northern parts of the government.

"Beading the reports in the Government office of the Imperial
Domaines, one is arrested involuntarily at a place which treats of
unauthorized fellings carried on without leave or sanction.

" According to these reports the population of the government
consists almost exclusively of those who were Crown serfs and their
children, whose requirements of wood for fuel and building are
sufficiently met by the allotments made to them annually from the
forests ; but these people for a long time back have been possessed
with the idea that woods are of no pecuniary value, and they destroy
them recklessly. When the annual allotment happens to be less than
they think they require for building material — for it may be fancy
erections which they do not require — they frequently go off to the
woods and cut what they want without ever applying for permission
to do so. And then the question comes up, Is it possible for the
people to acquire at the present time any adequate idea of the

* The standard equivalent of the rouble is 3s. 4d. It is generally, in accordance with
the rate of exchange, 2s. 6d. When I was in Russia last year it was 2s., and at one
time during the war it was Is. lOd. The rouhle is worth 100 kopecs. — J. C. B.

53

necessity which there is for the conservation of the forests and the
exploitation of them in a rational or scientific way ? Let any one
realize the case. Around all of these villages, even the smallest of
them, there are forests of which the eye can see no end, they appear
to be interminable ; and there are depths of them to which the foot
of man has never penetrated. The extent of these forests is such
that to the peasantry they seem inexhaustible ; while, on the other
hand, the severity of the climate, the unproductiveness of the soil,
and the poverty of the people are such as to seem to call upon every
one to find out for himself with a hatchet in his hand any means of
improving his condition.

" The natural condition of the country could not have called forth
or exercised upon the people an effect more to be deplored.

" The peasantry here look upon wood as being in common with
earth and air, fire and water, one of the elements, and as equally
free to all persons ; and they consequently consider that they are free
to use it without stint or limit, as one of the free gifts of nature.
This state of things, originating, as I have intimated, from the physical
condition of the country, can only be changed or destroyed by the
great change-producer, time ; and the reports of the consequent
destruction of the forests embrace numerous details of the extension
in the country of the practice of Sartage and Roeden, or Svedja. This
system of felling is very frequently met with ; but if we enter into
the circumstances of the case, considering, on the one hand, the con-
dition of the agricultural economy of the people, together with the
paucity of labourers and the lack of manures, and the circumstance
that the temporary culture of the fields which is thus effected supplies
the only means of support to man, and, on the other hand, the great
extent of the forests and the difficulty of maintaining an efficient
watch over them by wardens or forest watchmen with a great extent of
forest entrusted to their care, we cannot condemn the Forest Adminis-
tration for not adopting effectual measures to prevent altogether this
unauthorized felling of trees in the forest.

" This unauthorized felling is the primary form taken by agriculture
— the first step taken towards the development of rural economy. We
hope in process of time to get beyond this ; but to put it down by
force would not be a rational course of procedure. The Northern
peasant not having productive ground near his residence, nor means
to improve it if he had, goes into the depth of the forest, burns down
trees, and cultures his temporary field for two or three years, or so long
as its power of fertile production is not exhausted — the fertility being-
produced by the ashes and cinders of the burnt trees. The persuasion
of the peasant as to the perfect legality of such a procedure is such,

54

that it is very doubtful whether any general measure of repression
at present could remedy the evil. In order fully to understand the
economic condition of this region we must go back some fifty years
or so, and look at things with other eyes. I consider that this
unauthorized felling originally was legal and reasonable — suitable for
the place where the forests are very dense ; but as a principle it admits
of some formal limitation. And this, according to these reports,
appears to have been attempted in the government of Olonetz in 18G7.
Of the system of operations carried on by this people, it is said the
first settlers in the country were satisfied with small plots of ground
of easy cultivation, but as they increased in number they were
obliged to have recourse to land which was more fertile indeed, but
marshy or covered with forests, and requiring labour to prepare it for
culture, and care and thought. Cultivation such as may be seen in
civilized communities was not attainable by these people, were it
only from their want of agricultural implements and manure. In
the same book, on the page following, it is stated, ' In these virgin
soils, previously covered with forest or bush, the produce of rye in the
first year was tenfold — frequently twelvefold. ; and there were places —
generally places where there had been old dense high forests — in
which the produce was fiflyiold, and in the second year the produce
was from ten to fifteen fold/

" Within two weeks after my arrival at Petrozavodsk I was once
more on the road in my kibitka speeding onward to the most northern
town in the government of Olonetz, where according to the opinion
among the population is the end of the world. This town is called
Povonetz. At about 20 versts, or 14 miles, from Petrozavodsk is the
village of Thouya, the first post station on the river of the same
name, across which there is a barge ferry. The river Thouya flows
into the Onega Lake, and has throughout its course a very rapid current.
Where I crossed there was wood being floated down from the Govern-
ment mining forest estates situated further up, from whence the
strength of the current brought them down.

" The current brought them with such rapidity and force that the
barge was in danger, and with difficulty we reached the opposite
shore.

" The rapid current is not favourable for the flotage of timber,
and there has been formed what may be called a dam at the mouth
of the river; but this having been broken, a great quantity of
wood has been carried out into the Onega Lake, whereby the naviga-
tion of it in this part by steamers has been impeded. It is to be
desired that some effective measures were taken to prevent this loss,
which increases the cost of what fores4: timber is secured.

55

" Looking at the floating timber, I was struck with the activity with
which the men employed maintained their footing, each standing on
a log and holding in his hand a long pole or boathook, with which he
balanced himself, and with which, in floating down the timber, he
cleared the obstacles encountered ; and these on this river are very
numerous.

" For this purpose it is generally inhabitants of the district who are
employed, these being very skilful and accustomed to the work.
They are here known as ' Onejan,' or Onega men, and I am under an
impression that under this general name such workmen pass in St.
Petersburg.

Proceeding onward to the north, on both sides of the road there
were to be seen forests and forests, and nothing but forests. I
can affirm that the person who is acquainted with the extent of these
forests by knowing only the number of desatins which they cover,
has no idea of what that extent is. To obtain this, one must travel
through them — travelling continuously through forests for five hundred
versts ; and he must experience personally the depressing influence
produced by the forests and forest-covered mountains of this forest
region to enable him even partially to comprehend what is implied
in the easily pronounced statement about so many millions of
desatins. Such numerical statements are required for the production
of a national tax, or estimate and prescription of what fellings should
be made to secure a sustained production of wood, and charge to be made
for trees ; and the latter is a matter which is not so easy of accomplish-
ment as to many at first sight it may appear to be. Those who are
in the trade do not make known what is the cost of preparing the
timber for the market, or the prices obtained by them, being afraid of
the* charge to them being raised. If there be made but a simple
allusion to the subject, they begin to complain that they are carrying
on their operations at a loss, and that the demand for timber is
diminishing from year to year. And to arrive at a knowledge of the
truth, the forest officials must solve the problem for themselves, with
such data as they have at command.

" In connection with this subject the following statement may show
approximately what are the proceeds of the* sawing of timber.
From four logs are produced three dozen of boards of different
measurements. Four logs, according to the present charge, cost
1*80 rs. ; the transport to the river and flotage, sawing, shipment, and
freight to Cronstadt of these cost 10 rs. ; so the total cost is 11 '80 rs., and
the three dozen boards at Cronstadt are worth 1 8 rs. But the calcu-
lation, it must be borne in mind, is only an estimate approximately
correct. The total number of saw-mills in the 'government belonging

56

to private individuals is seven. Of these, two are in the district of
Olonetz, two at Petrozavodsk on the rivers Souna and Leejma, and
three in Povonetz on the rivers Ournentza, Koumsa, and Povetchanka.
The first-mentioned two are at the present time doing nothing, and
this is the cause of the considerable diminution seen of late years in
the revenue. Of the operations at Petrozavodsk some account has
been given.

" At a distance of ninety versts, or sixty miles, from Petrozavodsk, is
the village of Leejma, where there is a saw-mill of considerable mag-
nitude, oocupied also at the present time by M. Baelaeff. It is
erected on the river Leejma, and has two water-wheels and four
frames of saws, two for each water-wheel. It works without inter-
mission day and night, and can cut up in the course of the year
60,000 logs ; but, in consequence of hindering circumstances, it cuts
up only some 45,000. These are pine wood logs of the length of
twenty-two feet, and eight verschoks or fourteen inches thick at the
upper extremity. The boards most in demand in the market are
twenty-two feet long and three inches thick, which are known as
2|-in. boards ; and besides these there are what are called inch
boards, sent chiefly to Holland. According to the statements of the
traders these inch boards are both in quality and price inferior to the
Swedish boards of the same measurement, in consequence of which
the preparation of them in large quantities is not remunerative.

" Coming next to those connected with Povonetz, I have to state that
not far from the post road on the river Koumsa, at a distance of twenty-
three versts from Povonetz, there is a saw-mill belonging to the
timber merchant Mr. Zachanieff. This mill also I had an opportunity
of seeing. It is built in a very pretty situation, in the valley of the
rapid river Kamsa, surrounded by lofty hills extending to the Onega
Lake. The mill has one wheel and two frames, and there are sawn
in the course of the year about 30,000 logs. Everywhere about it are
seen order and cleanliness ; and there is a fire which never dies out,
burning continuously the outside slabs, the ends of logs, and other
debris ; and what are literally mountains of sawdust fill up the picture
of the mill and its surroundings, while the noise of the wheel and
.of the saws is reverberated by the surrounding forest.

" A journey of some fifteen miles brings us to Povonetz. A poorer
and more unattractive town than this it is impossible to imagine :
it is simply a village built on the plan of a town. The most remark-
able object in Povonetz is an old wooden church standing on the
shore of Lake Onega, built by Peter the Great, the only . monument
which indicates that ever he was here. There is, it is true, besides
this, the Petrozavodsk road ; but this is now only a footpath or track,

57

by which are brought the goods obtained in this town from Archangel.
Add to this two or three legends or traditions about Peter, and all
records of his having been here are exhausted.

" Almost close to the town, on the estuary of the Povetchanka, is
the saw-mill, which gives some little life to the town, and is the
only thing which vivifies its existence.

" The whole biographies of the place tell only of what relate to the
works, besides which the inhabitants have an opportunity several
times in the course of the summer to admire a steamboat which visits
the place ; bub beyond this and fishing, change they have none.

"Almost all the vessels which leave the landing-place of Povonetz
are laden with boards produced at this mill. In the fullest sense of
the word, Povonetz is a timber town, and on arriving here I felt
proud while I thought that my profession was the principal profes-
sion of its inhabitants, and had to do with the very source of its
wealth. To determine and specify what is the trade of the place must
occasion no difficulty to any one. Its imports consist of everything
excepting wood and fish, and its exports consist of wood and fish
alone, the latter principally Triska.

" The discharge of my official duties led me further in the north.
" For nine versts or six miles beyond Povonetz it is possible to
travel by coach, but beyond this point the journey had to be made
by water in very uncomfortable boats on narrow lakes, and rivers
connected with them. From the Lake Volozer issuesthe river Povet-
chanka, which flows through a very picturesque country. Thanks to
the high hilly shores, the general rapid current of the river, and the
frequent occurrence of considerable rapids, this little river, or rivulet,
is in spring changed into a very dangerous torrent, tearing along, and
threatening to engulf and carry along with it whatever may tumble into
its waters. It has a course of about eleven versts, nearly eight miles, and
by it are floated some 20,000 logs a year to the saw-mill at Polonetz.
" The construction of a road from near the Lake Volozer to the White
Sea has been projected, and the initiative of the execution has been
taken, but nothing more seems to have been done. The proposal
created great excitement throughout the district, where there are
very few roads of any kind or other facilities for communication with
other parts. Scarcely could the projection of a railroad in any other
part of Eussia produce so much discussion and excite so many hopes
as would the making of a common road in this country. This part of
the government of Olonetz is passing through that period of its his-
tory at which any measures taken for the formation of roads, the
opening up or clearing of forests, or the introduction of regular syste-
matic agriculture, possess very great interest.

58

"Unhappily the execution of this enterprise has not proceeded
further than the felling a strip of trees through the forest along
which it was proposed that the road should be made. And the gene-
ral impression is that soon the whole matter will end, for money is not
forthcoming, and the kind of road is not satisfactory. Coming upon it
at various points, it seemed to me that the projector or surveyor had
of design made it to pass at a distance from the most important
centres, and carried it over uninhabited districts and unsuitable land.

" For forest operations this road to the White Sea would not have
been unimportant, and, having referred to the subject, I am led, to
mention also a proposal which has been made to open up water com-
munication between the White Sea and the Onega Lake. Having no
accurate data, but only partial information, I cannot give details or
discuss fully the importance of this gigantic project.

<c Of this proposal it is stated in the Pramiatncds Knjka, or official
Notes of the Government of Olonetz for the year 1867, ' The execu-
tion of this project, opening up communication between the White
Sea and the Gulf of Finland, and vice versa, proposed solely with a
view to commercial enterprise, would for strategical purposes affecting
the whole of the north of Bussia have immense importance ;' and
Mr. Seederoff [a gentleman well known throughout this region, a mer-
chant who has carried on great commercial transactions in Archangel
and in Nova Zembla, and made valued contributions to the different
International Exhibitions in the capitals of Europe] says in a com-
munication to the Imperial Free Economical Society, ' Steam war
vessels could proceed from Cronstadt and make their appearance for
the protection of the inhabitants of the shores of the White Sea, or, if
necessary, of Archangel, which now, in consequence of the dismantling
of the fortress of Nova Dwina, is left without defence.'

" According to the views of M. Seederoff there will only be required
the construction of a canal fifty versts long, which, opening on the
lake, will make it possible for shipping to pass from the lake to the
White Sea, or from the White Sea to Lake Onega, and, consequently,
to St. Petersburg."

M. Judrae goes on to say, " Mr. Seederoff has, I think, neglected to
take into account the rapids of the Svir, which, to the accomplish-
ment of such a scheme, would require to be passed by a canal ; and
this would add considerably to the difficulty of the undertaking. But
both the Onega and White Sea Canal and the White Sea road remain
at present within the category of projects, and they are likely to
remain there for some time, as no one seriously believes in the execu-
tion of either of them in the immediate future.

59

"Keturning to details of my journey. After proceeding some
eighteen versts, or twelve miles, by boat through a succession of
narrow lakes, I landed at a place where there was a very narrow
path, which could only be traversed on foot. A walk of six versts,
or four miles, brought me to the village of Morskoy Mosselgie. The
road I found pleasant. It goes along a picturesque ridge of hills,
running from west to east some thirty -two versts or twenty-one miles
north of Povonetz, at an elevation of some seven hundred feet above the
level of the adjacent country, being the greatest altitude in the
government of Olonetz.

" This ridge constitutes the watershed of streams flowing on the one
side to the Baltic, and on the other to the White Sea. On the former
are narrow lakes, which, with the rivers connecting them or issuing
from them, flow into the Onega, while on the latter is the Matko-
zero, whose waters flowing northward follow the course indicated.

" On the banks of the Matkozero they fell wood for the saw-mills
at Povonetz, transporting it by carts across the Mosselgie ridge, the
woodmen going further and further into the interior of the forest, in
consequence of the exhaustion of the woods near to the saw-mill.

" Having crossed the ridge, I found myself in a country manifesting
all the characteristics of a northern land. I got into a boat again, and
went by the river some ten versts to the village Telekin situated on a
river or lake of the same name— I say river or lake because it is
difficult sometimes to designate precisely what is seen by the one name
or the other, or to tell at what point it ceases to be one or the other,
and to take the different character where it should be called a narrow
lake and where it should be designated a broad river.

" The general character of the waters in these regions is the follow-
ing : — Picture to yourself a comparatively small lake, having a flow
barely noticeable in some one direction. In the direction of this flow
the water becomes perceptibly narrower, and the shores get higher,
and the water takes the form of a river, distinguishable from the lake
above by being narrower and having a greater current, or it becomes a
strong rapid, by which the waters flow into a large expanded lake,
which serves as a reservoir for the waters of the surrounding neigh-
bourhood. Such are the general characteristics of all the small
expanses of waters in this* region.

" All the rivers and rivulets here have a great many rapids through-
out their course. For example, the river Vuigozero, which in a
course of 100 versts, 66 miles, from its leaving the lake of that
name, to its flow into the White Sea has seventeen rapids. The fall of
the river through these rapids is 272 feet. In consequence of these
rapids all navigation of the river is out of the question. Only timber

60

is floated down these rivers and their confluents in spring — and this
notwithstanding the stones with which the beds are filled, and other
obstacles. From the Vuigozero Lake I went 40 versts, 27 miles, by
the river Telekin to its embouchure.

" The Vuigozero or Vuigor Lake is one the largest lakes in the dis-
trict of Povonetz. It is 60 versts or 40 miles long, and 30 versts
or 20 miles broad. It is throughout its whole extent studded with
islands, which according to the idea prevailing in the locality are
equal in number to the days of the year. Some of these have an
area of 50 square versts. Many are covered with woods, but unin-
habited and unsurveyed, so that their contents are unknown ; many
of them find no place on the map, and their area is considered as lake,
though some of them have good available soil, or are covered with
valuable forests of pine.

" On the shore of the Vuigozero is the Vuigozero Podost, the most
southern station in the government of Olonetz for village administra-
tion, and this uninviting spot must be for a time my place of residence."

Mr. Judrae states what his duties were, and communicates some
valuable information relative to forest operations there and in similar
localities, all of which may be afterwards given in detail. Here it is
this journey and the aspect and condition of the country as seen by
him alone which engages our attention. Of this he thus resumes
details : —

" My duties on the forest estate of Vuig being finished, on the 9th of
September I left this place to go further to the north and the north-east,
to that part of the Povonetz district inhabited by the Corrells or
Karrells ; I had to go by boat on the Vuigozero. We had a favourable
wind, and the well-filled sails carried the small boat along with great
rapidity.

" I might have proceeded directly to my destination, but I could not
deny myself the pleasure, being there, of visiting the village of
Voitzi, situated at the northern extremity of Vuigozero, 100 versts
distant from the White Sea, and now in the government of Archangel.
This village is well known as the site of a gold mine which is now a
thing of the past. Gold was discovered there in 1735 by a peasant,
•Tarass Antonoff. Mr. Poushkaroff, in describing the government of
Archangel, says that at Voitzi, quartz on being crushed and washed
yields 7J zolotnicks of gold for every 150 pounds.*

" The working of the mine at Voitzi was discontinued in 1783. In
1827 gold was discovered on the banks of the river Vuig, and in the
course of the present century investigations have been made several

. * 96 zoloinicks .= 1 Ib. Russia, 40 Ibs. Russ. cr 36 Ibs. avoirdupois = 1 pood.— J. C. B.

61*

times by private parties, but they have not proved successful in un-
earthing any stores of the precious metal, and at the present time there
remain only here and there pits and buildings in which the workmen
of a former day were lodged. The traditions of the district give in
a thousand different forms pictures of the prosperity enjoyed by the
peasants in those times. I had to pay somewhat dearly for the
gratification of my curiosity to see the old mine. I had to go on foot
35 versts, 22 miles, to the nearest Karrell village, situated on the
edge of the forest estate of Padan; and my walk was the more
unpleasant because the road, or, speaking more correctly, the path,
according to local phraseology, founded on the topographical con-
dition of the ground, lay across .the earth, and did not go with the
earth. From the northern part of the district of Povonetz on to the
shores of the White Sea the ground lies in parallel rows of ridges or
linear hillocks, with hollows consisting sometimes of peat bog lying
between. The ridges are narrow and long, as are likewise the bogs
by which they are separated. They run north and south, conse-
quently for the traveller in either of these directions the path lies
along the summit of the ridge, and according to local phrase he goes
with the earth, and it is more easy to do so ; but if he travels east or
west he must walk across the bogs and ridges ; and as the crests are
about a verst apart, this has to be done in every verst of his journey.

" The Padan forest estate lies to the west of Vuigozero, and covers
an area of 570,000 desatins* All that has been said of the forests
of Vuig might be reaffirmed of these, the only difference being that
these show a decided preponderance of pines over the number of
firs, especially in the northern parts. In general, the nearer we
approach to the sea the more rarely do we meet with fir, and at last
this tree disappears entirely. With regard to the quality of the pine
I can state as the result of my personal observation, that within
certain limits the quality of the wood does not depend on the latitude,
but is in direct relation to the quality of the soil. In the Vuig forests
they are met with first in the middle and northern parts of the Padan
forest estate.

" With the development of forest operations in this district the
Padan forest will acquire much importance in consequence of the
number of navigable streams existing in the White Sea basin. In the
southern part of this forest estate there is the Segozera, second in size
only to the Onega ; further to the north is the Lake Ondazero, through

* A desatin = 40 x 60 or 2,400 Russian square fathoms of 7 English feet. An
English acre is 0'370ll of a desatin, which makes a desatin =. 2 '69972 English acres.
A desatin = ±"27 $9 Prussian moreens. A verst is equal to two-thirds of an English
mile.— J. C. B.

62

which flows the river Onda, one of the tributaries or confluents of the
Vuig, constituting the boundary between the governments of Olonetz
and Archangel.

" The population of this district is exclusively Correll or Karrell,
and the whole country bears the name of Karelia. If a line be drawn
on the map from the fall of the Vuig into the White Sea to the town
of Povonetz, the whole country to the west of this line lying between
it and Finland is Karelia ; the Svir may be considered the southern
boundary of this, and 65° N". Lat. its northern limits ; while the lands
bordering on this — the banks of the rivers (the Svir and the Vuig) and
of the lakes (Ladoga, Onega, Vuigozero) and the shores of the White
Sea — are peopled by Novogorod tribes. Karelia, forming a separate
and definite district, has both physical and economic conditions of its
own, and peopled by a distinct people who have retained their own
language and customs, its invaluable forests have remained for most
people a terra, incognita. These differences, combined with the un-
communicativeness of the people, and their rough manners and
poverty, which have become proverbial, have impeded the acquisition
of information about the country.

" Want compels the Karrells to leave their villages almost every year,
and multitudes of them go wandering about towns and villages, beg-
ging food in the name of Christ. The condition of the Karrells in the
vicinity of Povonetz and of Kem is somewhat better ; then through
contact with the more energetic Russians they have almost lost their
national characteristics.

" On the 1st of October I crossed the frontier of the government of
Olonetz, and in three days I was on the shores of the White Sea."

J. AND W. RIDER, PRINTERS, LONDON.

LANDED PROPRIETORS, ESTATE AGENTS, and others, Who

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OPBKATION OF WOOD-WORKING FACTORIES AND

MACHINEBY ; forming a complete

PERATOR'S HANDBOOK OF WOOD-
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oikmen. By J. KICHABDS, M.E.'

\Vor]

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"YTEW & IMPROVED POCKET TABLES,

JLl showing equivalent prices of all SIZES DEALS
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BURG STANDARD.— By W. BBTAN.

NINTH EDITION, just published,
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THE TIMBER MERCHANT'S POCKET
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NEW FLOORING TABLE, giving ihe
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Price 2s., post free, 2s. Id., Second Edition, carefully
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THE TIMBER MERCHANT AND
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3,000 Calculations, and 400 Marks and Qualities of
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OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

" We cordially recommend to all the Trade this mosi
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" We have pi' asure in comm°nding this work as a
cheap and simple series of Tttbles, supplying a want
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" This work quite exhausts the subject it deals wi h,
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with wood, is well got up, and being portable in form
and remarkably inexpensive itshouli have a good sale."
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THE

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the General Management of Estates.

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The special objects of this Journal are to encourage the Study
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Landed Proprietors, Foresters, Factors, Stewards, Estate Agents,
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