The management of even the State forests can only be very extensive. The State still sells mostly stumpage, rarely cutting on its own account. The lumbering is carried on very much as in the United States by logging contractors, and the river driving is done systematically by booming companies. Selection forest is still the general practice, now often improved into group system, although a clear cutting system with planting has been practised, but is supposed to be less desirable, probably because it entails a direct money outlay or else because it was not properly done. A seed tree management preferred by private owners for pine seems frequently not successful. Of the State forests 90% are under selection system, and of the private forest 60%.
In the southern provinces where planting is more frequently resorted to, 2-3 year old pines and 2-5 year old spruces, nursery-grown, 2,000 to the acre, are generally used or else sowing in seedspots is resorted to, which is more frequently practised in the middle country.
Some 10,000 acres were, for instance, planted by the forest administration in 1898, at a cost of $2 per acre, and the budget contains annually about $20,000 for such planting.
That private endeavor in the direction of planting, has also been active, is testified by a plantation of over 26,000 acres, now 35 years old, reported from Finspong Estate.
Complete working plans are rare even for the State forests, a mere summary felling budget being determined for most areas, the trees to be cut being marked.
Under instructions issued in 1896, working plans for the small proportion of State forest management by clearing system are to be made. In these an area allotment method is employed with rotations of 100 to 150 years.
Forest fires are still very destructive, especially in northern Sweden, although an effective patrol system, greatly assisted in some provinces by watch towers, has reduced the size of the areas burnt over. The coniferous composition and the dry summers in the northern part together with the methods of lumbering are responsible for the conflagrations. In this direction too, the activities of the Conservation Boards have been highly useful.
4. Education and Literature.
Among the propagandist literature, which had advanced the introduction of forestry ideas in Sweden it is proper to mention the writings of Israel Adolf of Ström, who after extensive travels in Germany established the first private forest school in 1823, and was instrumental in securing the establishment of the State Forest Institute in Stockholm (1828).