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ARBORETUM AND PKUT1CETUM.

PART 111.

dispose of the timber on his property, having completed a bargain withthe Petersburg merchant, sets his peasantry to work in picking out,cutting down, and dragging the trees from the forest to the lakes andrivers. This work generally takes place during the winter months, in orderthat every thing may be ready for floating the timber to Petersburg as soonas the ice on the rivers and lakes breaks up. As the ground is generallycovered several feet deep with snow, and the trees judged to be sufficiently largeand sound for the foreign market lie widely apart, the workmen and othersemployed in picking them out are compelled to wear snow shoes, to preventthem from sinking in the snow. When the trees are found, they are cutdown with hatchets, and the head and branches lopped off. The trunk isthen stripped of its bark, and a circular notch is cut round the narrow end of it,in which to fix the rope by which the horses are to drag the trunk along; anda hole is made at the other end for a handspike, to steer the log over themany obstacles which lie in its way. Many of these trees are 70 ft. in length,and of proportionate diameter; and they are drawn by from 5 to 9 horseseach, “ yoked in a straight line one before another, as the intricate narrowpaths in the wood will not permit of their going in any other way. One manmounts upon the leading horse, and another upon the middle one, whileothers support and guide with handspikes the large and distant end of thetree, to raise it over the elevations of the snow, and make it glide smoothlyalong. The conveyance of these large trees, the long line of the horses, andthe number of boors accompanying them through the forests, and acrossthe fields of snow, present an appearance very interesting.” (Howison in Ed.Phil. Jour., xii. p. 65.) In many cases, the trees are brought above 1000versts (nearly 1000 English miles) before they are delivered to the merchant;and they generally remain under his care “ another winter, to be shaped andfitted for exportation, in such a manner as to take up as little room as pos-sible on shipboardso that the Russian timber does not reach the foreignconsumer till two years after it is cut down. When the trees are deliveredto the merchant they are carefully examined by him, and the nobleman, orhis overseer, to ascertain their soundness; and, for this purpose, a hatchet isstruck several times against them, and by the sound arising from the strokesthey judge of the soundness of the tree. The trees rejected, which are calledbraake, are in the proportion of 1 in 10. The trunks are formed into rafts,and floated down the rivers by the current; but on the lakes they are propelledby sails or paddles, or, where practicable, by horses; the boors who guidethe raft, living in a wooden hut constructed on it. Most of the pine timbersent to Petersburg, lies beyond the Biel Ozer, or White Lake, the waters ofwhich, and of the Onega Lake, it has to traverse, besides passing down severalrivers, before it reaches Petersburg. “ Across these great lakes, resemblingseas in extent, the navigation is at times difficult and dangerous. Storms andsudden gales of wind frequently occur, driving the vessels and timber rafitsfrom the sides into the middle of the lakes, out of sight of land, and oftenproving destructive to them and to their crews.” In order to prevent suchaccidents, Peter the Great began the Ladoga Canal, along which the rafts areconveyed with perfect safety, to the river Neva, the stream of which carriesthem down to Petersburg, where they remain in the timber-yard of themerchant till they are ready to be floated down to Cronstadt for foreign ex-portation.” {Ibid., p. 70.)

In Germany there are extensive forests of pine and fir trees; and the fol-lowing description of the rafts of timber on the Rhine will give an idea ofthe mode by which these trees are conveyed down that river to the sea : —“ A little below Andernach, the village of Namedy appears on the left bank,under a wooded mountain. The Rhine here forms a little bay, where thepilots are accustomed to unite together the small rafts of timber floateddown the tributary rivers into the Rhine, and to construct enormous floats,which are navigated to Dortrecht (Dort), and there sold. These ma-chines have the appearance of floating villages, each composed of twelve orfifteen little wooden huts, on a large platform of oak and deal timber. They