Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/337

Rh For although her forests, particularly in the northern portion, seem inexhaustible, yet even among these the waste by accidental and designed burnings has at length shown the necessity of care and economy in forestry management. The forests of Russia have been swept off year by year by fires until portions of the country are suffering in a change of climate and in other respects as the consequence. The Volga is diminished in volume; navigation is becoming more difficult; fuel is getting scarce; and the services of those trained in forest schools are needed in Russia almost as much as they are in Italy or Spain.

The Agronomic Institute at St. Petersburg is designed to give the best education in both agriculture and sylviculture, and is organized for this purpose in two sections. Those admitted to it must have finished a course of instruction at some gymnasium. It has one hundred and fifty students in the forestry section, a three years' course of study, and graduates annually about forty pupils.

The Agricultural and Forestral Academy at Petrovsk, near Moscow, founded in 1865, is similar in character and course of instruction to the institute at St. Petersburg. In 1872 it had three hundred and thirty-three pupils in attendance.

About fifty miles from St. Petersburg is the forest school of Lissino, a school of the second class, whose graduates receive the rank of forest conductors. The course of studies is of a practical character, and is of three years in extent.