A Brief History of Forestry.

After much discussion of Radloff’s report, and consultation with the provincial governors, who suggested the propriety of different plans for different localities, new legislation was had in 1810, 1818, 1823, and new regulations for the crown forests were issued in 1824.

Yet at this very time not only the partition of the communal forests but also the sale of town forests was ordered; and this policy of dismemberment lasted till 1866, over 1 million acres having been sold by that time. Nor was any diminution in wasteful practices to be noted as a result of legislation, and it seems that, while on the one hand restrictive policies were discussed and enacted, on the other hand unconservative methods were encouraged. Indeed, in 1846, the then existing restrictions of the export trade were removed; apparently a reversion of restrictive policy had set in, and exploitation increased, in the belief of inexhaustible supplies. On the other hand, encouragement of reforestation was sought by giving bounties for planting waste land and for leaving a certain number of seed trees in the felling areas, also by paying rewards for the best plantations; all without result.

Meanwhile a check to the wood trade had occurred through the imposition of exorbitant customs duties by Great Britain, and at the same time the government imposed an export duty to discourage export from Norrland, and this was not abated until 1857.

A further project of forest supervision was attempted through a report by a new commission appointed in 1828, which formulated rules for the control of public and private forests, and recommended the establishment of a Central bureau for the management of forest affairs, as well as the organization of a Forest Institute, for the teaching of forestry. This Institute was established at Stockholm in 1828, but, instead of organizing the bureau, the director of that institute was charged with the duties of such bureau. Again for years, committee reports followed each other, but led to no satisfactory solution of the problems.

In 1836, however, a forestry corps (skogstaten) was organized for the management of the State forests under the direction of the Forest Institute, and, as a result of persistent propaganda, the central bureau of forest administration (skogsstyrelsen) was created in 1859 with Björkman at the head, charged with the supervision of all the State, royal, communal and other public forests, and the control of private forest use.

The law of 1859, however, did not settle upon any new policy of control over private forest properties. Again and again, forest committees were appointed to propose proper methods of such control, but not until 1903 was a general law enacted, which was to go into effect on January 1, 1905.

Previous to this, locally applicable laws were enacted. In 1866, a law was passed which referred only to a particular class of private lands, namely those forests of Norrland which the State was to dispose of for ground rent, or which had been disposed of and on which the conditions of settlement had not been fulfilled. In 1869, a law applicable only on the island of Gotland provided a dimension limit, and that in case of neglect of regeneration on private fellings the owner may not cut any more wood for sale, until the neglect had been remedied.

Exactly in the same manner as the homestead and other colonization laws in the United States have been abused to get hold of public timber lands, so in Sweden large areas of government land had been taken up for settlement, but actually were exploited. It was to remedy this evil that in 1860 an examination of the public lands was ordered with a view of withdrawing portions from settlement and of making forest reservations. The royal ordinance of 1866 resulted, which was to regulate the cutting on settled lands and in such new settlements as were thereafter allowed.

Here, private owners at first were allowed to cut only for their own use, and the new law prescribed the amount of yearly cut and required the marking of timber designed for sale by the government officers.

This “compulsory marking” or “Lapland” law with a dimension limit, was, in 1873, extended to all private forests in Norbotten, and in 1888, to Vesterbotten. This law limits the diameter to which fellings are to be made (8 inches at 15 feet from base), and if the cutting of smaller trees is deemed desirable for the benefit of the forest these are to be designated by forest officials.

The law for Gotland was renewed in 1894, adding a reforestation clause, the governor being authorized to prohibit shipping of timber under 8 inch diameter, and that not until new growth was established; or at least no new fellings may be made until this condition is fulfilled. The same law applies to sand dune plantations in other, southern districts. Altogether one-quarter of the private forest property was in this manner subjected to restrictions, until the present conservation law came into existence.

This law, of 1903, which became operative in 1905, was the result of a most painstaking, extended canvass by the legislative committee, appointed in 1896, which reported in 1899, and of a further canvass by the Director of Domains, who reported in 1901. A large amount of testimony from private forest owners, sawmill men, provincial and local government officials, etc., was accumulated, and it may be reasonably expected that this new legislation will be more effective than most of the preceding seems to have been.

The law requires in general terms the application of forestry principles in the management of private woodlands. For this purpose, a Forest Protection Committee, one for each province, is constituted which has surveillance over all private forests, an institution similar to that existing in Russia.

The Committee, or Forest Conservation Board, consists of three persons who are appointed for three years, one by the government, one by the County Council, one by the managing committee of the County Agricultural Society. In addition, where the communities desire, elected Forest Conservation Commissioners may be instituted to make sure of the enforcement of the law. The Board secures the services of an expert adviser from the State forest service paid by the government but leaves to the Board discretion as to the interpretation of the law which is for the most part expressed in general terms, to secure conservative management. Hence different Boards have worked in different ways, but gradually all are coming to similar methods, and all apply persuasive means rather than force.

The law requires regeneration, but does not prescribe detail methods as to how re-growth is to be obtained, leaving these to be determined by the Board in consultation with the owners. If no agreement can be arrived at, or if the measures stipulated are not taken by the owner, the Board may enforce its rulings by Court proceedings, in which injunctions to prevent further lumbering, confiscation of logs, or of lumber, or money fines may be adjudged.

The time of contracts for logging rights is reduced from 20 to 5 years. Short courses of instruction to forest owners, and the issuing of popularly written technical publications (Folkskrifter) is one of the efficient methods of securing the result, which seems to have been attained in the few years since the law is in operation, namely in arousing such interest that opposition has become very small.

An export duty (4 to 8 cents per 100 cubic feet of timber, 8 to 14 cents per ton of dry wood pulp) is levied for the purpose of carrying out the law the export duty amounting to over $160,000, and a more general export duty is under contemplation.

The management of communal forest is to be placed under the State forest administration, the corporations paying 1.6c. per acre; but this feature does not seem entirely settled.

Protective forests under special regulations are established at the alpine frontier and on the drift-sand plains, which are planted up.

3. Forest Administration and Forestry Practice

The central forestry bureau as it exists now was organized in 1883 as the Domain Bureau in the Department of Agriculture with, at present, a forester as General Director, and under it a forestry corps (skogstaten) (reorganized in 1890) which has charge of the public forests, and also of the forest control in the private forests where such control exists outside of the Conservation Boards. For the purpose of this administration the country is divided into 10 districts, each under an inspector (or öfverjägmästare); the districts are divided into ranges (revir), now 90, each under a chief of range (or jägmästare) with assistants and guards (kronojägare); the nomenclature of the officers suggesting the hunt rather than the forest management. In addition, 6 forest engineers are employed on working plans, engineering works, and in giving advice and assistance to private owners who pay for such service.

When it is stated that the ranges in the northern provinces average over 300,000 acres of public and 400,000 acres of private forest; in central Sweden 150,000 acres of public and 145,000 acres of private forest, and in the southern provinces nearly 55,000 acres of State and communal forest, it will be understood that the control cannot be very strict.

The net revenue from the State forest during the last 30 years has increased from $300,000 to $1,750,000.

The management of even the State forests can only be very extensive. The State still sells mostly stumpage, rarely cutting on its own account. The lumbering is carried on very much as in the United States by logging contractors, and the river driving is done systematically by booming companies. Selection forest is still the general practice, now often improved into group system, although a clear cutting system with planting has been practised, but is supposed to be less desirable, probably because it entails a direct money outlay or else because it was not properly done. A seed tree management preferred by private owners for pine seems frequently not successful. Of the State forests 90 % are under selection system, and of the private forest 60 %.

In the southern provinces where planting is more frequently resorted to, 2-3 year old pines and 2-5 year old spruces, nursery-grown, 2,000 to the acre, are generally used or else sowing in seedspots is resorted to, which is more frequently practised in the middle country.

Some 10,000 acres were, for instance, planted by the forest administration in 1898, at a cost of $2 per acre, and the budget contains annually about $20,000 for such planting.

That private endeavor in the direction of planting, has also been active, is testified by a plantation of over 26,000 acres, now 35 years old, reported from Finspong Estate.

Complete working plans are rare even for the State forests, a mere summary felling budget being determined for most areas, the trees to be cut being marked.

Under instructions issued in 1896, working plans for the small proportion of State forest management by clearing system are to be made. In these an area allotment method is employed with rotations of 100 to 150 years.

Forest fires are still very destructive, especially in northern Sweden, although an effective patrol system, greatly assisted in some provinces by watch towers, has reduced the size of the areas burnt over. The coniferous composition and the dry summers in the northern part together with the methods of lumbering are responsible for the conflagrations. In this direction too, the activities of the Conservation Boards have been highly useful.

4. Education and Literature

Among the propagandist literature, which had advanced the introduction of forestry ideas in Sweden it is proper to mention the writings of Israel Adolf of Ström, who after extensive travels in Germany established the first private forest school in 1823, and was instrumental in securing the establishment of the State Forest Institute in Stockholm (1828).

In regard to education a most liberal policy prevails.

At the Institute the tuition is free and in addition 4 students receive scholarships of 250 dollars per year; appointment to assistantships follows immediately after promotion, and in 10 years the position of jägmästare may be attained. The number of students is limited to 30. The director of this school is also general adviser in forestry matters. Besides the director, six professors are employed. The course at this school is two years of 11 full months.

There are now a higher and a lower course, the former requiring previous graduation from another preparatory forest school, either the one at Omberg (founded 1886), or that at Kloten (1900), where a one-year course, mainly in practical work, is given.

For the lower service there are not less than 6 schools in various parts of the country, each with one teacher and assistants, managed under a chief of range. In these, not only is tuition free but 10 pupils receive also board and lodging; the course lasting 8 months. These schools prepare for State service, as well as for managers of private forests.

A forest experiment station was organized in 1903, an independent institution in the Domain Bureau, under the direct charge of a practitioner. Every third year, a commission is to determine what work is to be undertaken. The appropriation, which so far is hardly $5,000 per annum, will not permit much expansion. The first number of its publication, Meddelanden fran Statens Skogsförsöksanstalt, was issued in 1904, and work of a superior character has been accomplished since then.

That a forestry public exists in Sweden is attested by a forest association with an organ Skogsvards Föreningens Tidskrift, which was founded in 1902. This journal is really the continuation of an earlier magazine, Tidskrift for Skogshushallning, a quarterly, begun in 1869 and running until 1903. A forestry association for Norrland alone which also issues a yearbook, was organized a few years ago. A periodical for rangers, etc., is also in existence under the name of Skogsvännen.

In 1902 also, there was formed a lumberman’s trust to regulate the output, which the forest owners proposed to meet by an associated effort to raise stumpage charges. The attempt of the lumbermen to restrict the cut in 1902 was, however, a failure, for the export of that year was 10 % larger than the previous year.

It is expected that the new law will have the tendency of decreasing the cut and of inaugurating a new era in forestry matters generally.

NORWAY

Originally divided up among a number of petty kings, Norway was brought under one rule by Harold in 863; and united to Denmark in the 11th century, becoming gradually a mere dependency. Its later political fortunes and changing relations with Denmark and Sweden have been referred to on p. 286. The history of the forestry development, however, has proceeded more or less independently of the other two countries.

Norway, occupying with 124,445 square miles over one-third of the Scandinavian peninsula, is for the most part a mountainous plateau with deep valleys and lakes. Its numerous fjords and water ways make accessible much of the interior mountain forest, yet a large part of the inland area still remains inaccessible and trackless.

More than 75 % of the country is waste land and water; only 3 % in farms, leaving for the forest area 21 %, or little over 17 million acres. According to latest data (1907) from this productive area a further 2 million acres must be deducted as non-producing.

The distribution of this forest area is most uneven. The bulk and the most valuable portion of it is found in the south-eastern corner around Christiania in eight counties, in which the forest per cent. exceeds 40 to 50, with conifer growth (pine and spruce) up to the 3,000 foot level. Again in the three counties around Trondhjem a large and important forest area is located at the head of the fjords. But the entire western coast and the higher elevations are devoid of valuable forest growth and the northern third of the country (north of the Arctic circle) is mostly heath and moors with only 7 % wooded, mainly birch growth of little commercial value.

The commercially important forest area is, therefore, locally confined. It is estimated that one-half of the territory has to import its lumber, one-quarter has sufficient for home consumption, and the excess which permits exportation is confined to the last quarter. This export, mostly in logs and staves, which amounts to nearly 20 million dollars (40 % of the total export) half of it woodpulp is estimated to represent only one-fifth or one-sixth of the total cut, which is stated as about 350 million cubic feet, or at the rate of 23 cubic feet on the productive area while the annual growth is estimated at less than this amount, namely at the rate of nearly 21 cubic feet in the southern districts, and in the northern not over 12 cubic feet.

Scotch Pine is the principal timber, and occurs beyond the Arctic Circle – the northernmost forest in the world – where its rotation becomes 150 to 200 years, with Norway Spruce more or less localized, these two species forming 75 per cent. of the forest growth; oak, ash, basswood and elm occurring sporadically, and White Birch being ubiquitous.

Forest property developed on the same lines as in Sweden and in other European countries, hence we find State, communal, and private property.

When in the ninth century, upon Harold’s accession, the commons were declared the property of the king, the rights of user, both to wood and grazing, were retained by the märker, and the so-called State commons (stats-almenninger) remain to date encumbered by these rights, similar to conditions in Sweden. From the end of the 17th to the middle of the 19th century it was the policy of the kings to dispose of these commons whenever their exchequer was low, and the best of these lands became, by purchase, property of the districts (bygdealmenning), provinces, city and village corporations, or else became private property on which the rights of user continued (privatalmenninger).

At present the State owns, largely in the northern districts, somewhat over 4.8 million acres (28.5 %); but of this hardly 2 million acres are productive, and of these productive acres half a million consists of encumbered commons from which the State receives hardly any income. The district commons or communal, and other public institute forests comprise around 7,800,000 acres (46 %); but here again only 580,000 acres are productive. The balance then, or a full one-quarter is in private hands.

Export trade in wood had been very early carried on, and had been considerably developed in the 13th and 14th century. By the middle of the 17th century the coast forest of oak had been cut out by Dutch and English wood merchants who had obtained logging privileges under special treaties of 1217 and 1308, and by Hanseatic cities, especially Hamburg entering this market in the middle of the 16th century.

There are records which would make it appear that at least some of the now denuded coast was forested in olden times. The development of the iron industry increased the drain on these supplies, which forest fires, insects and excessive grazing prevented from recuperating.

As early as the middle of the 16th century we find attempts to arrest the devastation by regulating the export trade and supervising the sawmills, forbidding especially the erection of sawmills intended to work for export only.

In the 17th century, various commissions were appointed by Christian IV to make forest reconnaissances and elaborate rules for proper forest use. In 1683, Christian V issued a forest ordinance increasing the number of forest inspectors instituted by his predecessor, and giving in detail the rules governing forest use, many of which proved impractical.

In 1725, a commission, the socalled forest and sawmill commission, was appointed to organize a forest service. It functioned until 1739, when the first Generalforstamt was established and the first attempt at real forest management was made. This came into existence through the efforts of two famous German foresters, J. G. von Langen and von Zanthier, who with six assistants were called in from the Harz mountains (as also afterwards to Denmark and Sweden), during the years 1736 to 1740, to make a forest survey and organize a management. Descriptions and instructions were elaborated in German and the service was largely manned by German “wood foresters” (holzforsterne). The strictness of the department which had been organized after von Langen’s departure in 1739, made it, however, unpopular, and, in 1746, it was abolished, von Zanthier returning to his country, the sole survivor, the other assistants having succumbed to scurvy. The administration was again placed in the hands of a commission which continued till 1760.

Only the forests connected with mines remained under the administration as instituted, and those belonging to the copperworks of Roras continued under its forest inspectors until 1901.

In that year, 1760, another shortlived attempt to organize a forest administration was made, but the new organization did not fare any better and was superseded in 1771. Then followed an interim regimen, during which the general government and district officers were in charge.

The old orders under which forest use had been regulated remained mostly in force until in 1795 all the reasonable and the unreasonable obstructions to export were removed. The sawmill privileges, under which English lumbermen held large areas for long terms and devastated them without regard to the impractical regulations, were, however, not ended until 1860. The wood industries were then relieved entirely from restrictions, and forest destruction progressed even more rapidly with the increasing facilities for transportation.

This final cessation of the destructive policy was the outcome of a campaign which started once more with a forest commission instituted, in 1849, to take stock and make new propositions. This commission reported in 1850, and pointed out not only the necessity of terminating the sawmill privileges, which was done in 1854, giving time till 1860, but also very wisely accentuated the need of technically educated foresters if anything for forest recuperation was to be done.

To meet this latter want, young men were sent to Germany at government expense to study forestry. Some 10 or 12 men were educated in this way during the next decade and thereby the basis for a technical forest management was laid. In 1857, the first two professional foresters, Mejdell and Barth, were placed in charge of affairs under the Interior Department, and when in 1859 a new commission was charged with organizing a forest service, these two men were members. Gradually an organization took shape under the direction of these two forestmeisters, and, finally, in 1863, the modern forest department and forest policy was established by law, placing the State domain and other public forests under an effective management, making provision for the extinction of the ruinous rights of user and also for reducing the mismanagement of private forests.

The forest service, as now constituted after a reorganization in 1906, is in the Department of Agriculture under a director (Skovdirector) and 4 Forstmeister or inspectors with some executive officers under various names, and 360 rangers (skogsvogternes), including the rangers employed in the public forests outside the State domain. The ranges are so large, sometimes several million acres, and many of them so inaccessible that only the most extensive management is possible; the officials being poorly paid and poorly educated, the management is, of course, not of a high order.

Besides a “forest engineer,” who is a public lecturer, the officers of the forest department are under the obligation of advising private forest owners in their management, under contracts somewhat similar to the present practice of the U. S. Forestry Bureau, the owners agreeing to follow the advice.

Since 1860, the State has begun to purchase forest lands for reforestation in the forestless districts and where, for protective reasons, it is desirable. In late years, regular appropriations of $15,000 to $20,000 were annually made for this purpose, besides extraordinary grants. In this way, the cut-over lands, neglected by their owners, are cheaply acquired by the State. Besides its own planting, the State assists private owners by advice and money grants and plantmaterial in reforesting their waste lands.