Indeed, even to-day Russia is one of the largest and increasingly growing exporter of forest products in the world, its annual export having grown in the five years, 1903 to 1908, from 4 to 6 million tons and from 35 to 62 million dollars. A vast territory of untouched woods is still at her command, representing roughly two-thirds of the forest area of Europe.
The vast empire, second only to the British empire in extent, gradually acquired since the 15th century, occupies in Europe (including Finland) somewhat over 2 million square miles with over 120 million inhabitants, and in Asia somewhat over 6.5 million square miles, with only 30 to 40 million people.
Until 1906, when as a result of a revolution, a kind of representative government was secured, the hereditary Czar was ostensibly and by title an autocrat, governing with the assistance of four great councils and 12 ministers, but in reality the government was in the hands of a bureaucracy and court cabal, to a large extent corrupt, and hence the many good laws and institutions of which we read, may not always be found executed in practice as intended.
The European section of the country is divided into 98 governments or provinces, each under a governor, who is, however, largely dependent on the central power. The large territory of Siberia is divided into three governor-generalships, much of it, as well as of the other Asiatic provinces, is still unorganized, undeveloped and unexplored, or at least little known. Originally used mainly as a penal colony for criminal and political exiles, since the completion of the great Trans-Siberian railway, the country has been peopled by Russian farmers.
Both European Russia and Siberia are in the main vast plains, the former sloping northwestward from the Ural mountains in the East and from the Caucasus in the South, and the latter from the Altai, Lyan and Yabloni mountains north to the Arctic Ocean. Both sections exhibit in the southern ranges the effect of continental climates, prairie and plains country: the steppe; and in its northern ranges the effect of an arctic climate, short hot summers and long, severe winters: tundra and swamps.
1. Forest Conditions and Ownership.
Both the forest area and the ownership conditions vary very much throughout the empire. Russian statistics are very unreliable and are based on estimates rather than enumerations, and vary from year to year.
So little is known of conditions in Asia, where Russia occupies a territory three times as large as its European possessions, that we can dispose of them briefly. There exists a vast forested area, almost unknown as to its extent and contents, or value. This area is mainly located in Siberia, and although its extent is uncertain, it is known to exceed 700 million acres, but it is also known that its character is very variable, and much of it is “taiga” or swamp forest, much of it devastated, and much of it in precarious condition, fires having run and still running over large portions, destroying it to such an extent that in several of the provinces within the forest belt, the question of wood supplies is even now a troublesome one. The natives are especially reckless, and devastation difficult to control. The railroad has only increased the evils.