* It lies with the taxator to prescribe the time and place of all the fellings, and so to combine these as to prepare for the whole forest being brought into such uniformity in its several parts as is most favourable for the carrying out of the most approved forest management of the day, but doing this with the least possible sacrifice of advantages,
— though unhesitatingly risking this if necessary for the execution of the general plan, and to secure plots presenting a regular gradation in age.
' Two copies of his scheme, with charts and specifications, must be prepared, one for the Minister of Finance and the other for the forester; and with the former must be presented a report of the forester's reasons for adopting any measure, or for not adopting any other which may seem naturally to suggest itself for adoption. And the forester can only proceed to carry out the measures proposed when they have received the sanction of the Minister of Finance.
' In subordination to what general scheme of operations it may be deemed desirable, provision must be made for the supply of local requirements. As every section of the forest, of which there are many, is distinct, and surrounded by villages, an opportunity must be supplied to them of purchasing such wood as they require, that they may not be left without this, or be placed under temptation to steal.
1 Where the fellings are well conducted, and the soil is adapted for the natural germination of the seed, as, for example, is the case in the Kshepitsk forest, in the Government of Petrokoff, the forest district readily takes the appearance and condition of a regulated forest. But unhappily the fellings throughout the Government forests do not all fulfil these conditions, and the reproduction of the forests felled proceeds very slowly, and in some cases does not take place at all, of which a striking illustration is supplied by the Raigrod forest, in the Government of Lonija, where there are twelve cleared fellings, where there are no signs of reproduction, though a long time has elapsed since they were cleared — in the case of the first felled, fourteen years- -and they have still growing on them baliveaux, or seed-bearing trees, left in the first felling for the production of seed.
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' The soil in these clearings, originally poor, becomes further impoverished by the long continued action of the light promoting the decomposition of the humus; and from the continuance of this influence a natural reproduction of the forest there can scarcely be expected.
* This system of making a complete clearance, leaving only balweaux for seed, is very much followed throughout the kingdom, and notwithstanding the discouraging results which have been witnessed, occasioning in many cases considerable loss, they are still continued even in the most valuable forests, where, in view of the effects on the revenue, and of the natural hindrances to reproduction, it might have been advantageous to have sacrificed a portion of the proceeds to effect without loss of time an artificial reproduction.'
M. Bitney mentions that in the Government of Plotsk, in a forest growing on very poor sandy soil, the natural sowing of fellings so cleared is proved by many cases to proceed very slowly, requiring from ten to thirteen years, and even then it is very irregularly done. Yet while this is one of the most pecuniarily productive of the forests, yielding annually 1*75 roubles of nett returns for each desatin, the fellings are conducted in the manner, and with the result stated, that of a tardy and poor reproduction of the forest through the false economy of leaving the space to the chances incidental here to natural sowings.
' With regard to the sections of the forest which are in the second and third stages of reproduction and growth, their condition is in general most satisfactory, especially when we take into account that these forests were in the locality where, for about two years, the fighting chiefly took place, and for some time after that they were left open to depredations, which were only repressed by the forests being placed under the guardianship of the soldiers; but we have seen elsewhere that forests have suffered in this way chiefly on their outer verge, and that to such an extent that there were left there only bare poles, while the centres of the forests remained in a great measure free from depredation. And if one meets with a few mature or middle-aged woods, as in Petrokoff, Vlotslaff, and Kampinoss forests, in which are indications of the destruction of trees, and in which are but a few trees of mature or middle age, this is more attributable to former long continued mismanagement than to depredations.