165 In this manner, the homestead’s continued existence as a source 118 rents. of state revenue was guaranteed. The responsibility of the kamcr-kollcgiia for keeping itself informed about the economic situation in each province of the realmwas emphasized in its instruktsiia even more than had been the case in the instructions issued to the Swedish kammarkollegiiwi. to “attempt even more to people, as much as possible [and] little by little, the abandoned farms and land {zapustelye dvory i zemli), and by means of careful management to watch in future for, and to avoid, all types of abandonment (pustota). in that it was to take various measures to keep the number of cultivated homesteads from diminishing. Concerning this question, the kammarkollegium wrote the following in its administrative report for 1697:^-^ Above all, the college was 119 The Swedish college had a comparable task 120 The college has also done everything it could to prevent abandonments: And it has inclined instead to consider how homesteads may be populated with clever and ambitious tenants rather than letting them lie uncultivated, to which end we have, when it has been sensed that some homestead was heading toward abandonment, written about this to the provincial governors that they should, as called for in the thirty-sixth and forty-second sections of the instruktion, not only prohibit and stop this, but also do all that is properly possible to bring such homesteads into full production. In addition to all this, both the Russian and Swedish colleges were to supervise the forests. The kamer-kollegiia was given the task of seeing to it that “the woods, and especially the necessary trees, are preserved. In Sweden, it was above all the constant demand for wood for shipbuilding and the making of iron, so destructive to the forests, that led to the placing of the protection and preservation of the forests under the supervision of the kammarkollegium. Reflecting its Swedish prototype completely, the Russian kamer-kollegiia was to have the power to appoint all local administrative officers, with the exception of the provincial governors and provincial bursars. The bursars were to be appointed by the shtats-kontor-kollegiia.^-^ Only candidates whose suitability had been investigated and established by the kamer-kollegiia were to be named to such posts,^-^ and each civil servant was to put up a bond as security for his administration of funds, as is shown by the following excerpts: WiRSELL, 68—69. *"• ZA (no. 416, section 13: 1), 564. ZA (no. 416, section 13: 3), 564. Relation, 70—71. ZA (no. 416, section 13: 4), 564. Relation, 80. See below, p. 207. '-® ZA (no. 416, section 12: 3), 564; Relation, 15. ” 122 12;} 118 120 12»
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