Karst Problems. 173 



the felling areas were often made too large, undue 

 increase of undesirable softwoods resulted. During 

 the last 50 years, silvicultural theory and practice 

 developed very much on the same lines as in Germany, 

 more intensively in the densely populated and more 

 accessible regions, and less so in the more distant and 

 thinly settled mountain districts. 



The most noted work of reforestation which has 

 occupied Austrian foresters for the last forty years or 

 more is that of the "Karst," a name applied to the 

 waste lands in the mountain and hill country of Istria, 

 Trieste, Dalmatia, Montenegro and adjacent terri- 

 tory skirting the Adriatic Sea. It is a dry limestone 

 country of some 600,000 acres in extent, stony and 

 rough, and overdrained. Originally well forested with 

 conifers and hardwoods, it had furnished for ages 

 ship timber and other wood supplies to the Venetians. 

 Through reckless cutting, burning and pasturing by 

 the small farmers it had become almost entirely de- 

 nuded, natural reforestation being prevented by these 

 practices combined with the dryness of the soil, in- 

 tensified by the deforestation. 



For centuries, countless laws were passed to stop 

 the progress of devastation, but without effect. 



The first attempt at planting was made by the city 

 of Trieste in 1842, and found some imitators, but with 

 meager result. 



In 1865, the Austrian government, acting upon 

 representations of the Forestry Association, undertook 

 to encourage and assist private landowners in re- 

 foresting their Karst lands by remitting taxes on re- 

 forested lands for a period of years, by technical 



