94 TIMBER REQUIREMENTS 



Serbia. The Serbian forests in the mountains, 

 according to General Wassitch, then commanding 

 the 3rd Serbian Army, should some day in a not 

 distant future prove utilisable if, as is to be hoped, 

 they have not been much damaged by the Bul- 

 garians, who cut down most of the orchards of the 

 country in the lower ground. 



Let us glance briefly at the chief countries supply- 

 ing materials to these markets. 



Austria-Hungary. The chief forests from which 

 Austria-Hungary drew her supplies for the Mediter- 

 ranean and Near East markets are situated in 

 Bukowina and Galicia. In order to capture the 

 Mediterranean markets, Austria raised a loan of 

 3,000,000 florins in the nineties, which she expended 

 in opening out the forests of these regions by clearing 

 the river beds for floatage purposes, building narrow 

 gauge lines, erecting sawmills and so forth. Her 

 timber and exporting merchants also combined and 

 succeeded in obtaining from the Russian Govern- 

 ment low freights for timber carriage over the 

 Russian railways, and equally low freights from the 

 Russian Steamship Navigation Company for carriage 

 of timber to Odessa. The timber from the Bukowina 

 Mountains was placed on the railway at Novoselitsa 

 and railed to Odessa, and shipped from there to the 

 importing countries. Thus Russia, who has, as 

 will be shown, magnificent forests in the Caucasus 

 and on the Black Sea littoral, was actually assisting 

 her rival to cut out Russian timber exports in this 

 market, a matter which has now a considerable 

 importance and significance. 



