246 Dr Bone on the Population mid Agriculture 



Cahors. The cultivation of the olive-tree is only to the south 

 of Salonichi, and is chiefly in the hands of Greeks. 



They plough with oxen, which have their heads placed in 

 two square pieces of wood. The hay is kept in the open air 

 either in large piles or on low trees, on the branches of which 

 wooden frames are sometimes placed. Considering the activity 

 of the Bulgarians, it is quite certain that if they were under a 

 wiser administration, all the ground which could be cultivated 

 in Turkey would soon be covered with the most luxuriant 

 crops. At present these are seldom met with ; as they occur 

 only in some of the great valleys ; in other parts too many 

 thistles are to be seen in the corn-fields. The hiring of men 

 and women from the high lands for the labours of the harvest 

 is a general custom ; and in summer one meets large bands 

 of young women and men travelling about. The Bulgarians, 

 like the Servians, do not seem to understand the proper ma- 

 nagement of land by a rotation of crops ; and for this reason 

 fields sometimes remain uncultivated for years. Potatoes are 

 unknown throughout the whole of Turkey with the exception 

 of Montenegro, Avhere they were introduced above twenty years 

 since by the late Valadika Peter Petrovich. The art of im- 

 proving the quality of fruit-trees seems also to be very little 

 known in Turkey, and scarcely any thing is known about the 

 proper application of manures to the soil. Lastly, throughout 

 the whole of Turkey, no care whatever is taken of the forests ; 

 a circumstance which requires the serious attention of the Tur- 

 kish government, particularly in jegard to the mining districts, 

 as, from want of wood, owing to the present careless way of 

 cutting down the trees, some of the mines may soon become 

 useless. There is much more wood in northern than in southern 

 Turkey ; but even there people should not be allowed to commit 

 such havoc in the finest oak-forests. The largest trees are 

 burnt down below by travellers or shepherds merely for the 

 sake of a fire ; and the trees afterwards fall upon the road or in 

 the forest, or perhaps rest suspended on other trees, nobody 

 paying any attention to them. Some trees remain half burnt, 

 and occasionally parts of the forest catch fire from carelessness. 

 No regulation is enforced as to the cutting of the trees. It is 

 said that some regulations have been made in Servia to re- 



