_Les Forêts de la Russie, Ministère de l’Agriculture, Paris
Exposition Universelle_, 1900, pp. 190, gives a very detailed
description of forest conditions, markets and management, with a few
historic points.
_Russlands Wald_, by F. V. ARNOLD, Berlin, 1893, pp. 526, contains
historic notes and a profuse discussion of the law of 1888.
_The Industries of Russia: Agriculture and Forestry_, issued by the
Department of Agriculture, Ministry of Crown Lands, at World’s
Columbian Exposition, translated by J. M. CRAWFORD, 1893, contains a
chapter on Forestry by ROUDZSKI and SHAFRANOV, professors at the
Forest Institute, in 35 pp.
Annual reports by the Russian Forest Administration are published
since 1866.
Four diffuse volumes, by JOHN CROUMBIE BROWN, treat of Russian
conditions, namely,
_Forests and Forestry in Poland, Lithuania_, etc., 1885;
_Finland, its Forests and Forest Management_, 1883;
_Forestry and Mining districts of the Ural Mountains_, 1884;
_Forests and Forestry of Northern Russia_, 1884.
Numerous articles and Reviews by O. GUSE, scattered through the
German forestry journals, give insight into Russian forest
conditions.
An excellent idea of prevailing forestry practice can be gained from
an extended article by DR. SCHWAPPACH, _Forstliche Reisebilder aus
Russland_ in Zeitschrift für Forst- und Jagdwesen, 1902.
For Finland an article by B. ERICSON in Forstwissenschaftliches
Centralblatt, 1896, and another article by P. W. HANNIKAINEN in
Allgemeine Forst- und Jagdzeitung, 1892, both native foresters, give
considerable information.
_Finland: Its Public and Private Economy_, by N. C. FREDERIKSEN,
1902, 306 pp.
While Germany and France were forced into the adoption of forest
policies through necessity, after the natural woods had been largely
destroyed or devastated, Russia started upon a conservative forest
management, long before the day of absolute necessity seemed to have
arrived.
Indeed, even to-day Russia is one of the largest and increasingly
growing exporter of forest products in the world, its annual export
having grown in the five years, 1903 to 1908, from 4 to 6 million tons
and from 35 to 62 million dollars. A vast territory of untouched woods
is still at her command, representing roughly two-thirds of the forest
area of Europe.
* * * * *
The vast empire, second only to the British empire in extent, gradually
acquired since the 15th century, occupies in Europe (including Finland)
somewhat over 2 million square miles with over 120 million inhabitants,
and in Asia somewhat over 6.5 million square miles, with only 30 to 40
million people.
Until 1906, when as a result of a revolution, a kind of representative
government was secured, the hereditary Czar was ostensibly and by title
an autocrat, governing with the assistance of four great councils and 12
ministers, but in reality the government was in the hands of a
bureaucracy and court cabal, to a large extent corrupt, and hence the
many good laws and institutions of which we read, may not always be
found executed in practice as intended.
The European section of the country is divided into 98 governments or
provinces, each under a governor, who is, however, largely dependent on
the central power. The large territory of Siberia is divided into three
governor-generalships, much of it, as well as of the other Asiatic
provinces, is still unorganized, undeveloped and unexplored, or at least
little known. Originally used mainly as a penal colony for criminal and
political exiles, since the completion of the great Trans-Siberian
railway, the country has been peopled by Russian farmers.
Both European Russia and Siberia are in the main vast plains, the
former sloping northwestward from the Ural mountains in the East and
from the Caucasus in the South, and the latter from the Altai, Lyan and
Yabloni mountains north to the Arctic Ocean. Both sections exhibit in
the southern ranges the effect of continental climates, prairie and
plains country: the steppe; and in its northern ranges the effect of an
arctic climate, short hot summers and long, severe winters: tundra and
swamps.