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During the last few years the owners of the Finnish
forests have seen their property more than double in
value. The timber merchants and owners of saw-mills
have probably experienced an even larger increase, and
the workmen have had their large share of benefit.
On the forest lands of the north they are paid
American prices for their labour; three to four marks a day,
or eight marks for a man with a horse. Foreign
business men and capitalists — Swedes, Norwegians, and
Englishmen — have taken part in this commerce,
sometimes in person, sometimes as shareholders in (mostly
Finnish) companies, also by purchasing logs to be
floated to saw-mills on the other side of the Gulf of
Bothnia. This too is to the profit of the country. It
is said that the present energetic exploitation of the
timber trade is eating up the capital of the future;
but this is a great exaggeration. In the first place, as
we have said, it is the great waste inland which causes
most of the trees to be cut down prematurely, and
this will grow less in time as the forest becomes more
valuable. In the second place, notwithstanding this
inland consumption, the annual increase of the forests,
including the Crown forests, is larger than the yearly
felling. This increase is variously estimated at from
2 to 2.4 cubic metres per hectare (2½ acres) in the
south, and from .7 to .8 cubic metres in the north.
The whole consumption may be 20½ million cubic
metres per annum, but the increase is certainly more
than 21 millions. In Sweden, where also in former
times no care was taken of the government forests,
the yearly increase is estimated at 2 cubic metres per
hectare; in Prussia, with its poor forest land, but
where much better care has been taken of the woods,
even if sound economic principles do not prevail, the
increase is 2.6 cubic metres per hectare. In any case,
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