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.