Timber Rcsotirces of Ttirkey in Europe. 699 



sort of semi-proprietorship exists in the case of these laltalihs, as the 

 users have a legal right to prevent strangers cutting wood in them, 

 although they have themselves no right to sell or even to clear the 

 ground. 



Intermediate between public and private woods come those known 

 as vaJcoufs, which have been left at some time or other for the use 

 of religious foundations, and the management of which consequently 

 rests with the cvkaf or administration of mosque property and 

 charitable trusts, which receives their revenue and defrays the cost 

 of management. 



Lastly, there are the public forests, which virtually belong to no 

 one, but of which every one makes unrestricted use as though bent on 

 their annihilation at the earliest possible moment. 



According to both the letter and the spirit of the old Ottoman law 

 public forests {cljcbel muhah) could only exist where the land was 

 utterly valueless. The remoter parts of mountains, the face of cliffs, 

 inaccessible peaks, and the like, alone were to be thus regarded as 

 a sort of "no man's land," as the Arabic root of the word djebel, 

 denoting a rugged mountain side, testifies. But in practice, particularly 

 of late years, it has not been so. Wherever forest land, not being 

 private property, has proved easy of access, or facilities have offered 

 for its destruction, there both land and timber have been treated as 

 djebel muhah, and worked accordingly. And it is a significant fact 

 that wherever djchel muhah is recognised agriculture declines and 

 disappears, leaving the population dependent for existence on the 

 forests they are doing their best to destroy. 



The Forest Department, which figures in the Turkish Budget of 

 1875-6 for a sum of £161,000 sterling, has proved wholly inadequate 

 to meet this evil. The causes are too deeply seated. The disappearance 

 of the flocks, the folding of which formerly provided for the amend- 

 ment of the fields, the decline of tillage under the ever-increasing 

 burthen of taxation, the ignorance and obstinacy of the peasantry (in 

 which respects the Christian populations stand conspicuous), not to 

 speak of the squabbles between the erkoff and the officials of other 

 departments, and the utter apathy and indifference of the Government, 

 all have contributed to the results. 



Private woods, as the korous, it should be said, are generally well 

 preserved ; and tliere appears reason to believe that with adequate 

 forest management much valuable timber might yet be saved in 

 various parts of the country, and, with the aid of improved communi- 

 cations, be turned to account. 



However this may be, of the present state of the timber resources 

 of Turkey in Europe there can be no doubt. The popular notions of 

 forestry there prevailing may be summed up in the pithy words of a 



