322 Turkey and Slavish Countries. 



Roumelia, comprising Macedonia, Albania and 

 Thrace, the Turkish possessions in Europe, with 67,000 

 square miles and 5,000,000 people, contain large areas of 

 untouched forest (not less than 5,000,000 acres in Mace- 

 donia alone*) with valuable oak and walnut, which have 

 remained unused owing to their inaccessibility and 

 the undesirability of developing them under Turkish 

 rule. Where accessible, the forest is maltreated or 

 destroyed. 



Bulgaria, to which, in 1885, East Roumelia was 

 attached, represents now 38,000 square miles and 

 over 4,000,000 people, independent under a German 

 prince as king since 1879. The forest areaf of 7.5 

 million acres (30 per cent, of the land area), mostly 

 deciduous (oak, beech, walnut, etc.), and largely con- 

 fined to the mountains, is one-half in communal owner- 

 ship, one-sixth in private hands, mostly small wood- 

 lots, and one-third State property; but ownership 

 rights are still much in doubt, and until 1869 the State 

 forests were freely open to the use of all, when some 

 sort or regulation of the cut according to the needs of 

 different communities was attempted. Since within 

 10 years such rights of user establish ownership, end- 

 less litigation has resulted, until in 1883 a law was 

 enacted ordering the stoppage of rights of user, sub- 

 stituting money payment (10 per cent, of value), and 

 another restricting the diameter to which the most 

 valuable export timber, walnut, may be cut. Changes 

 in detail were made in 1897, but political exigencies, 

 absence of an adequate organization, and other un- 



* Lacretelle, Rapport sur les forets de la Mac^doine, 1893. 

 t Fotstliche Rundschau, 1903. 



