' The details and minutes of the conference are known to you from the reports issued. I wish to communicate the outside or public influence of the conference on the press and on the Polish nation. It is a question whether any other Russian congress, or conference of similar chara^ter and aim, has ever produced so great an effect on the public mind. The intelligent classes of the community and the public press exhibited a lively interest in this, the fourth Russian conference of foresters and landlords. The specialists and the owners of forests who had arrived in Warsaw were the heroes of the day, and the questions discussed attracted the liveliest notice of the public. The reports of the conference appeared in print daily; even the illustrated papers contained views of the " Salon " during the sitting of the congress. The vital question of forestry was worthily discussed by the Polish press, and the economical importance of forestry was energetically advocated, The ground was preliminarily prepared by free invitations to attend the congress, and by timely issues of pamphlets and papers on the subject, the object of which was to acquaint the public with the objects of the congress. The intelligence of society in general was adequate to the occasion. Thanks to this " coaching/' the public were prepared to give the guests a hearty welcome; and many specialists and owners of land arrived from all parts of Poland. Three hundred members attended the first sitting. But the great attraction was the permission to discuss in Polish as well as in Russian. Many of the Polish landowners could not have spoken on scientific subjects in Russian, and therefore it was a very wise step on the part of the committee of the congress to permit the use of the two languages. To the honour of the committee be it said that it withheld itself from bureaucratic views, and having set aside out-of-place principles, permitted discussion in Polish, and they thereby enlisted the active sympathy of many who would otherwise have been but dumb spectators. Measures of this kind rendered the conference very popular. Russian members became the " very dear guests " of Polish members, an enthusiasm such as is seldom witnessed was engendered, and the weighty subjects were most warmly discussed. According to accounts of old residents of Warsaw, such heartiness in a " public important topic " has seldom been shown. The whole finished up with a " final supper in the Swiss valley." This entertainment was characterised by great warmth, and expressions of warm sympathy on the part of all assembled.'
In reply to an enquiry which I addressed to a friend, a Pole, in regard to works on forestry and botany in Polish, he supplied me with the following list: —
Alexander Potujanski. — Opisanie Ias6w Krdlestwa Polskiego i Gubernij Zachodnich Cesarstwa Rossyjskiego pod wzgledem historycznym, statystycznym i gospodarczym. — Warszawa, 1846. 4 tomy. (Description of the forests of the kingdom of Poland and Western Governments of the Empire of Russia. Warsaw. 4 volumes.)
J. Waga. — Flora Polonica — Varsoviae, 1848 an., and Stirpes rariores Bucovinae — Stanislawow 1853 an. (Bucovina at present belongs to Austria.)
Kluk Krzysztof. — Dykcysnarz roslinny. (Dictionary of
Jundzitt Stanislaw Bonifacy. — Opisanie roslin litewskich podlug ukladu Linneusza. 1811. (Description of the plants of Lithuania according to the system of Linnaeus. 1811.)
Jundzitt J6zef— Opisanie rdslin w Litwie, na Wolyniu, Podolu, i Ukrainie, drika rosnacych jako i oswojonych. Wiluo, 1830. (Description of the plants in Lithuania, Volynia, Podolia, and the Ukraine.)
CHAPTER V.
WHILE it is forestry to which my attention has been chiefly given in my studies of Poland, with such a history as that country has, it is natural that this should receive some attention from the student of forest science.
According to the Abbs' des Fontaines, in his History of the Revolutions of Poland from the foundation of that Monarchy to the death of Augustus II — a work published early in the last century, in which the author followed Duglossius, a canon of Cracow, who composed a history of Poland in Latin, which, though valuable, has defects which the Abbe* des Fontaines in his work endeavoured to remedy, while he also adduced additional details from the works of Thuanus, which are of considerable celebrity: —