'All the private forests under the surveillance of the Forest Administration are placed under the supervision of their officers, according to their situation and proximity to different forest administrations of Crown forests in the same district; and as there are a great many such forests, and they are widely dispersed over the kingdom, of the 64 administrations amongst which the Crown forests are divided, there are only seven of these which have not private forests under their supervision.
' This supervision extends only to seeing that they be not destroyed. With this in view, and to reduce as much as possible the trouble of the administration in the discharge of the duty, the lenders — be it the Government or the banks— make it a condition of loan that they shall bring if necessary the forests into proper condition, and carry out such plans of management as after examination shall be sanctioned by the Forest Administration. Entailed estates are not handed over to the inheritors until they have been, if necessary, put into a proper condition in accordance with the regulations laid down for Crown forests, and they bind themselves to carry out the management and exploitation of them in accordance with the prescriptions of these regulations.
' In all that relates to details of conservation — the period of felling, the mode of sale, and the cutting up of the wood — the holder is left to do as he thinks proper, provided only a systematic approved exploitation be carried out, with satisfactory provision for the reproduction of the forests as they are felled; in regard to these points alone is surveillance exercised.
' A little consideration will show that the Government foresters have enough and more than enough on their hands in the administration of the forests belonging to the Crown. And it is not always the case that they have either the opportunity or the time to carry this out in accordance with the usually prescribed order of procedure — and this, exclusive of what has to be done in connection with partial fellings, and cutting openings through the extent of the forest, &c., all which makes the control they have to exercise more complicated, and the result may be an exhaustion of the forests subjected to their surveillance. And this is the more likely, seeing that they have no power in many cases to compel the proprietors to keep a forester to carry out the prescribed plans of management and exploitation.
' From the consideration of all this it will be seen that the supervision of private forests is not so easy a matter as at first sight it may appear to be. And such supervision as is exercised cannot prevent exhaustion, or even uprooting, or destruction of private forests, if the proprietors wish this done.
' In regard to the failure of this nominal surveillance, Mr Polonjansky, in statistics prepared by him some fifteen years ago, pointed out to the Forest Administration that up to that time nothing effectual had been done.
'All the Crown forests have been under the supreme control of the Administration of Finance from the initia-
AREA, DISTRIBUTION, MANAGEMENT, &c. 41
tion of regular forest administration up to the present time. Under the Minister of Finance there has been a distinct Department for the management of the Crown property, included in which are the Crown forests. Some few changes have taken place in this department, but they have consisted mainly in reducing the number of officials employed in it. At present the forest section of the Administration of Finance consists of thirteen officials in all, under a chief, but even he has very little to do with the actual management of the forests, and he in turn is under the immediate direction of the department of Imperial domains, with the director in which lies the initiation of the management of the forests; and the forest section in the Ministry of Finance presents more the appearance of a chancery than of a department.
' The forests are arranged in eight districts, over each of which is a commissioner; but these districts are not all of equal size and importance. Each commissioner has an adjunct, who may be likened to the taxator, or valuer, in the Russian forest service. They have the superintendence of all buildings, &c., as assistants to the commissioners, and they very rarely have anything entrusted to them entirely.