330 Greece. 



rock, a poor, dry limestone is characteristic of the 

 country except where fertile, alluvial and diluvial 

 deposits cover it in valleys along the coast. The 

 climate is, however, so favorable that even the poor 

 soil would readily reclothe itself if left alone. The 

 winters are short, hardly three months, and with 

 hardly any snow or ice except on the high mountains, 

 making the vegetative period nine months; and, with 

 temperature ranges from 20 to 106 degrees F.; rainfall 

 average 400 mm.; the summers, to be sure, rainless 

 and dry, but the other seasons humid, somewhat less 

 than in middle Europe, rapid growth is the result of 

 these conditions. But the continued pasturing of 

 goats and sheep some six million prevents any 

 natural reforestation. Increased taxation on this 

 industry has had no effect, and the practice of per- 

 mitting the people to gather dry wood for fuel is an 

 incentive for making dry wood by setting fires, which 

 also serve to improve the pasture; perhaps nowhere 

 are forest fires more frequent, in spite of heavy penal- 

 ties. That a baneful influence on the water condition 

 and river flow has been the result is historically 

 demonstrated by Chloros.* 



In the mountains some fine and quite extensive 

 bodies of fir still exist, lack of transportation having 

 preserved them. Elsewhere the rights of user, and 

 the herding of goats are so well established that re- 

 forms appear, indeed, difficult. 



Firewood, 3 loads for each person, supposed to be 



*See Allgemeine Forst-tmdjagd zeitung 1884, p. 183 ff., and 1887, p. 327 ff. 

 for interesting details. 



