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.