A Brief History of Forestry.

This law declares as “protective forests,” to be managed under special plans prescribed by the Crown forest department, those forest areas which protect shifting sands and dunes, the shores of rivers, canals and other waters; and those on the slopes of mountains, where they serve to prevent erosion, landslides and avalanches.

Conversion of these protective forests to farm use is forbidden, and the use of a clearing system in forest management, as well as pasturage and other uses supposed to be detrimental, may be interdicted, and the method of management may be prescribed. An instruction regarding the execution of the law promulgated in 1889 prohibited clear cutting in conifer forests, permitting only selection forest, and in especially endangered localities only the use of the dry wood and such trees as interfere with natural reproduction.

“Protected” forests are those which are located at the head waters and upper reaches of streams and their affluents. Here the rules as regards clearing, mismanagement, reforestation and pasture applicable to the non-protective forests, prevail, except that clearing may be prohibited or permitted, if the committee deems it not dangerous owing to the small size of the clearing.

In forests, which are not protective forests, conversion into farms or clearing with the sanction of the committee is permitted, if thereby the estate is improved, e. g., if the soil is fit for orchards and vineyards. Such clearing may also be allowed if the soil is fit for temporary field use, but in that case the area must be eventually reforested. Clearing is also permitted, if another formerly farmed parcel of the same size has been reforested at least three years prior to the proposed clearing; or if in artificial plantations the growth is not yet 20 years old; also in a few special cases where property boundaries are to be rounded off, roads to be located, etc. If after six months from the time of the application the committee has not forbidden the clearing, it is considered as permitted. It is also forbidden to make fellings which prevent natural regeneration, and the running of cattle in young growth is prohibited. Private owners are not required, but are permitted, to submit working plans, and if these are accepted, they are exempted from any other restrictions. Such plans may be considered as accepted if the committee does not express itself within one year. All clearings made in contravention to the committee’s decision must be replanted within a prescribed time or may be forcibly reforested by the committee.

The most interesting feature, because thoroughly democratic, is the creation of the local forest protection committees, which are formed in each province and district, composed of various representatives of the local administration, one or two foresters included, the justice of the peace or other justice, the county council and two elected forest owners, in all nine to eleven members, under the presidency of the governor.

This committee is vested with large powers. It decides, without appeal, what areas are included in protective forests and approves of the working plans for these as well as for the unreserved forests; it determines what clearings may be made, and exercises wide police powers with reference to all forest matters working in co-operation with the Forest Administration, which latter has the duty of making working plans free of charge for the reserved forests, and, at the expense of the owner for the private unreserved forests. Owners of the latter are, however, at liberty to prepare their own plans subject to approval. Appeal from decisions of the Forest Committees lies through the Committee to the Minister of Crown lands and Minister of the Interior.

In case the owner refuses to incur the extra expense arising from measures imposed upon him, the domain ministry may expropriate him, but the owner may recover within 10 years by paying costs with 6 % interest in addition to the sale price. In addition to the above cited and other restrictive measures, some ameliorative provisions are also found. All protective forests are free from taxes forever; those artificially planted also for 30 years.

Some of the best forest officials are detailed to give advice gratuitously to forest owners (forest revisor – instructors) and prizes are given for the best results of silvicultural operations. At the recommendation of the Forest Committees, medals or money rewards or other distinctions are given to the forest guards and forest managers of private as well as public forests. Plant material is distributed free or at cost price, and working plans for protective forests are made free of charge.

The Imperial Loan Bank advances long term loans on forests, based upon detailed working plans made by the State, which insure a conservative management. In 1900, over 7,000,000 acres were in this way mortgaged under such management.

The minutest details are elaborated in the instructions for the execution of this most comprehensive law. How far this law is really executed and what its results so far have been, it would be difficult to ascertain. It is, however, believed that it has worked satisfactorily. By 1900, 1.5 million acres had been declared protection forests, nearly 2 million protected or river forests, and nearly 100 million private and communal forests had been placed under the regime. In 1907, the total area under the regime had grown to over 136 million acres. Of private forests, 18 million acres in 6015 forests were being managed according to working plans made or approved by the forest committees. In these plans, usually, the strip system or seed tree system with natural regeneration under 60 year rotation for conifers, and at least 30 year rotation for broadleaf forest, is provided.

In 1903, the application of the law was extended to the Caucasus, the Trans-caucasian and other southern provinces, but in the absence of suitable personnel and in a half civilized country, no result for the immediate future may be anticipated.

The surveillance of the execution of this law lies, with the assistance of the Forest Committees, in the hands of the State Forest Administration.

This latter, centralized in the Department of Agriculture, consists of a Director General with two Vice-Directors and a so-called bureau of forests with seven division chiefs, a number of vice-inspectors and assistants. The local administration in the governments is represented by the Direction of Crown lands with a superintendent or supervisor and several inspectors. The crown forests, divided into some 1260 administrative units, are under the administration of superintendents, with foresters and guards of several degrees.

The whole service comprised, in 1908, about 3790 higher officials, some 850 of whom in the central office at St. Petersburg, and over 30,000 lower officials some 20,000 of whom are educated underforesters.

Large as this force appears to be, it is small in comparison with the acreage, and inadequate. Although the net income from the 300 million acres of State forest which are actually worked is now close to thirty million dollars, the expenditures being near 6 million, the pay of the officials is such as to almost force them to find means of subsistence at the cost of their charges. Perhaps nowhere else is there so much machinery and so much regulation with so little execution in practice. Nevertheless, progress is being made in gradually improving matters, and the forest property, or at least the cut, has become more and more valuable. While in the middle of the last century the income from the domain forest was only $500,000, by 1892 it had grown to $10,000,000, by 1901 to $23,000,000, in 1908 to nearly $30,000,000, besides several million dollars’ worth of free wood. In 1908, the department spent over half a million dollars on planting and assisting natural regeneration. Timber is sold as a rule to contractors by the tree or acre, and a diameter limit is almost the only restriction. In 1897, however, an arrangement was made by which the lumberman was obliged to reforest, or at least to pay a certain tax into a planting fund, and a part payment of $2 to $4 per acre as guarantee must be made before cutting. This order has, however, remained mostly a dead letter, the buyer preferring to allow his guarantee to lapse. In 1906, there stood $3,000,000 to the credit of this planting fund, and only half of it had been applied. Meanwhile the unplanted area increases, since natural regeneration generally proves a failure.

3. Education and Literature

The attempts at forestry education date back to the year 1732 when a number of foresters were imported from Germany to take charge of the forest management as well as of the education of foresters, each forstmeister having six pupils assigned to him. This method failing to produce results, the interest in ship timber suggested a course in forestry at the Naval Academy, which was instituted in 1800. Soon the need of a larger number of educated foresters led to the establishment of several separate forest schools, one at Zarskoye Selo (near St. Petersburg) in 1803, another at Kozlovsk in 1805, and a third at St. Petersburg in 1808. This latter under the name of the Forest Institute absorbed the other two, and from 1813 has continued to exist through many vicissitudes. Now, with 15 professors and instructors and an expenditure of nearly $250,000, and over 500 students, it is the largest forest school in the world. It prepares in a four years’ course for the higher positions in the forest service. “The history of this Forest Institute is practically the history of forestry in Russia.”

A second school at Novo-Alexandria, near Warsaw, was instituted in 1860. In these schools, as in the methods of management, German influence is everywhere visible.

In addition to these schools, chairs of forestry were instituted in the Petrovsk School of Rural Economy in Moskau and in the Riga Polytechnic Institute, and also in seven intermediate schools of rural economy.

In 1888, ten secondary schools were established after Austrian pattern for the lower or middle service, rangers and underforesters; their number, by 1900, having been increased to 30 and, in 1908, to 33, with 460 students. These are boarding schools in the woods, where a certain number of the students are taught free of charge, the maximum number of those admitted being 10 to 20 at each school. The course is of two years’ duration, and is mainly directed to practical work and theoretical study in silviculture. The total expense of such a school is about $3,300, of which the State contributes $2,500, the total expenditure, in 1908, being $84,134.

A number of experiment stations were established in various parts of the country by the Administration of Crownlands, and a very considerable and advanced literature testifies to the good education and activity of the higher forest service.

Two forestry journals, Lesnoj Journal (since 1870) and Lessopromychlenny Vestnik, the first bi-monthly, the latter weekly, besides several lesser ones, keep the profession informed.

There are in existence several general societies for the encouragement of silviculture. Probably the oldest, which ceased to exist in 1850, was the Imperial Russian Society for the Advancement of Forestry which was founded in 1832. It published a magazine and provided translations of foreign books, among which the Forest Mathematics of the noted German forester König, who also prepared yield tables for the Society. (See p. 135.) A society of professional foresters was founded at St. Petersburg in 1871, another exists in Moscow, and recently two associations for the development of forest planting in the steppes have been formed.

Among the prominent writers and practitioners there should be especially mentioned Theodor Karlowitsch Arnold, who is recognized as the father of Russian forestry. He was the soul of the forest organization work, for which he drew up the instructions in 1845, and as professor, afterwards director, of the Institute for Agronomy and Forestry at Moscow since 1857, he became the teacher of most of the present practitioners. Finally he became the head of the forest department in the Ministry of Apanages where he remained until his death in 1902. He is the author of several classical works on silviculture, forest mensuration, forest management, etc., and, in conjunction with Dr. W. A. Tichonoff, published an encyclopædic work in three volumes. In the first volume, Russland’s Wald (1890), which has been translated into German, the author makes an extended plea for improved forestry practice and describes and argues at length the provisions of the law of 1888. In 1895, he published a history of forestry in Germany, France and Russia. Of other prominent foresters who have advanced forestry in Russia we may cite Count Vargaci de Bedemar, who made the first attempt to prepare Russian growth and yield tables in 1840 to 1850.

Professor A. F. Rudzsky, who was active at the Forest Institute until a few years ago, developed in his volumes especially the mathematical branches and methods of forest organization. The names of Tursky, Kravchinsky and Kaigodorov are known to Russian students of dendrology and silviculture, and among the younger generation the names of Morozov, Nestorov, Orlov, and Tolsky may be mentioned.

It is well known how prominent Russian investigators have become in the natural sciences, and to foresters the work of the soil physicists, Otozky and Dokuchaev would at least be familiar.

4. Forestry Practice

While then a very considerable activity in scientific direction exists, the practical application of forestry principles is less developed than one would expect, especially in view of the stringent laws. So far not much more than conservative lumbering is the rule.

Generally speaking, the State and crown forests are better managed than the private, many of which are being merely exploited; and in the northern departments large areas remain still inaccessible.

Some notable exceptions to the general mismanagement of private forests are furnished by some of those owned by the nobility, like those of Count Uwaroff with 150,000 acres under model management by a German forester, and of Count Strogonoff with over 1,000,000 acres under first-class organization with a staff of over 230 persons.

A regular forest organization was first attempted in the forests attached to iron furnace properties in 1840. By this time some 100 million acres have come under regulated management, half of the area being government forests. The method of regulation employed is that of area division and sometimes area allotment according to Cotta. In some regions a division by rides into compartments, ranging from 60 to 4,000 acres each, according to intensity of exploitation, has been effected. It is estimated that at the present rate of progress it would take 300 years to complete the work of organization.

The selection method is still largely employed, a felling budget by number of trees and volume being determined in the incompletely organized areas; while a clearing system with artificial reforestation is used in most cases where a complete yield calculation has been made. The rotations employed are from 60 to 100 years for timber forest, 30 to 60 years for coppice.

In the pineries, the strip system in echelons is mostly in vogue, the strips being made 108 feet wide, leaving four seed trees per acre, and on the last strip, which is left standing for five years, this number is increased to eight which are left as overholders. This method, according to some, seems to secure satisfactory reproduction. To get rid of undesirable species, especially aspen and birch, these are girdled. In spruce forest, 50 to 60 per cent. of the trees are left in the fellings, when after three to four years the natural regeneration requires often repair, which is done if at all by bunch planting; after eight to ten years the balance of the old growth is removed.

While for a long time natural regeneration was alone relied upon, now, at least, artificial assistance is more and more frequently practiced. Yet, although over 2 million acres were under clearing system, not more than 5 % of the revenue, or $100,000, was in 1898 allowed for planting as against 7.5 % in Prussia; the total budget of expenses then remaining below 3 million dollars.

But, ten years later, over half a million dollars was employed by the government in planting, the planting fund contributed by the lumberman (see p. 269) furnishing the means.

The forest administration of the province of Poland, where the State owns over 1.5 million acres was for some time independent, but, about 1875, was reorganized and placed under the central bureau at St. Petersburg. Although the forests of Poland are the most lucrative to the government and, with good market and high prices for wood, which are now rapidly increasing, would allow of intensive management, the stinginess of the administration, the low moral tone of the personnel, and long established bad practice have retarded the introduction of better methods. The private forests of Poland comprise over 4.5 million acres, and are mostly not much better treated than the State forest; in the absence of any restrictive policy they have diminished by 25 % in the last 20 years.

Considerable efforts have been made towards reforesting the steppes in southern Russia, first as in our own prairies and plains by private endeavor, but lately with more and more direct assistance of the State forest administration.

This planting was begun by German colonists at the end of the 18th century, but without encouraging results, although over 25,000 acres had been planted by the middle of the 19th century. Since 1843, the government has had two experimental forest reserves in the steppes of the governments of Ekaterinoslav and Tauride, on which some 10,000 acres have been planted; the originator of this work being von Graff, a German forester, whose plantations, made with 8,000 plants to the acre, are still the best. Later, the number of plants was reduced to one-half, and the results have not been satisfactory. Altogether, planting on large areas on soils unfit for the purpose and by wrong methods has produced poor results. At present the policy is not to create large bodies of forest, but to plant small strips of 20 to 80 yards square in regular distribution, which are to serve as windbreaks, and the result has been satisfactory, especially in the government of Samara. There are now annually 2,000 acres added to these plantations.

The reclamation of shifting sands and sand dunes has also received considerable attention and, to some extent, the reboisement of mountain slopes in the Crimea and Caucasus. Of the former, some 10 million acres are in existence in European Russia, and in the province of Woronesh alone each year 100,000 acres are added. For 50 years sporadical work in their recovery was done. Not until 1891 and 1892, when two droughty famine years had led to an investigation of agricultural conditions, was a systematic attempt proposed, and this was begun in 1897. By 1902, some 80,000 acres had been fixed, and by 1904, 150,000 acres. In this work the government contributes 36 % of the cost, the benefited communities the balance. In addition, 1,500 square miles of swamps in Western Russia were reclaimed by extensive canals and recovered with meadow and forest at a cost of $300,000, of which the Imperial Treasury paid one-third, the owners one-half, the local government the balance.

While rational forest management, as we have seen, is far from being generally established, the government tries at least to prevent waste and to pave the way from exploitation to regulated management.

FINLAND

The Grand Duchy of Finland in the northeast of Russia is still in some respects independent of Russia.

Finland, the “land of a thousand lakes” and of most extensive forests, is hardly less important as a wood producer than Russia itself; its wood exports amounting at present to around 200 million cubic feet and over 25 million dollars in value, represent over 50 per cent. of its trade, and its most important resource.

Settled in the 7th century by an Aryan tribe, the Finns, congeners of the Magyars, who subdued the aboriginal Laplanders, Finland became by conquest in the 12th century, and remained for 500 years, a province of Sweden. In the wars between Sweden and Russia; parts of this province were conquered by Russia, and finally, in 1809, Sweden lost the whole; but the Finns succeeded in preserving national unity and partial independence under a constitution, adopted in 1772 and recognized by the Czar.

Finland stands very much in the same relation to Russia as does Hungary to Austria, the union being merely a personal one: the Czar is the ruler or Grand Duke, but the administration is otherwise largely separate from that of the empire, under a Governor-General, appointed by the Czar, and a Senate of 18 members at Helsingfors, with a national parliament of the four estates, nobles, clergy, burgers, peasants, which convenes every five years; the Czar having the veto power over its legislation. The War Department of Russia, however, is in charge of military affairs, and other departments seem to be under more or less supervision of the Russian administration. Lately repressive measures are threatening or have nearly accomplished the destruction of this autonomy.

Of the 145,000 square miles of territory, nearly 50 % is occupied by lakes and bogs, marshes or tundra; less than 9 million acres (9.7 %) is in farms, and 37.5 million acres or 42 %, is forestland, actual or potential; The major part of this is located in the northern and eastern sections, where the population is scanty, agriculture little developed, and sand soils prevail. Beyond the 69th degree, forest growth ceases, and naturally near the forest limit the scrubby growth partakes of the character of all northern forests. Not more than 2.5 million acres, mostly in the southwestern sections, are actually under cultivation; the population being short of 2.5 million.

The rigorous climate makes a large consumption of fuelwood necessary, and, since houses are also mostly built of wood, the home consumption is over 32 cubic feet per capita. Over 10 million cubic feet of pine are consumed in making tar, and a like amount for paper pulp. The total cut is in the neighborhood of 370 million cubic feet, four-fifth of which comes from private forests of the middle and southern area, and over one-third of it is being exported.

The country generally is a tableland with occasional low hills. The forest consists principally of pine, the latter a variety of the Scotch Pine (or species?), called Riga Pine which excels in straightness of bole and thrifty growth, and of spruce (10 per cent. of the whole, mainly in the southeast). Aspen, alder and birch, especially the latter, are considered undesirable weeds, and fire is used to get rid of them where coniferous aftergrowth is desired, although birch is also employed for fuel, bobbins and furniture, and aspen for matches. Basswood, maple, elm, ash and some oak occur, and larch (Larix sibirica) was introduced some 150 years ago.

Long, severe winters and hot, dry summers produce slow growth, the pine in the north requiring 200 to 250 years, in the middle sections 140 to 160 years to grow to merchantable size.

Fires, used in clearing, have from time to time run over large areas and have nearly killed out the spruce except in the lowlands, but the pine being more resistant has increased its area and in spite of the deterioration of the soil by fire reproduces well.

Originally the forest was communal property, but in 1524, Gustav Vasa declared all forest and water not specially occupied to belong to “God, King and the Swedish Crown,” although he allowed the usufruct to the people free of charge or nearly so. These rights of user are still the bane of the forest administration. Being left without supervision it mattered little who owned the land, the forest was ruthlessly exploited. Later, the rights of user thus originating were bought off by ceding lands to the peasants.

Not until 1851 did an improvement in these conditions occur when a provisional administration of the State forests was provided in connection with the Land Survey; but a rational organization materialized only after an eminent German forester, v. Berg, Director of the forest school of Tharandt, had been imported (1858) to effect a reconstruction. His advice was, however, only partially followed, and the organization was not perfected until 1869.