608 Canadian Forestry Journal, July, !pi6. 



The Forest Resources of Serbia 



Great Development Promised in Near Future When 



Railways and Cableways Overcome 



Handicaps on Driving, 



Without taking into consideration 

 her great agricultural and mineral 

 resources, Serbia would still be a 

 very rich country, merely through 

 the' possession of her forests. Hith- 

 erto this forest wealth has been lit- 

 tle utilized, owing to the lack of 

 communication between the forest 

 areas and the sea, although the 

 actual distance is comparatively 

 short. The reason for this lack of 

 development is due to the very 

 rugged topography of the country 

 which makes road construction very 

 difficult and expensive. However, 

 the country owes its forest resources 

 in a great measure to this same fact, 

 for doubtless if the early Egyptians. 

 Syrians. Greeks, Carthaginians, Ro- 

 mans, Byzantians and Venetians, 

 with their immense demand for ship 

 building and construction material, 

 had been able to reach the forests 

 of Serbia, they would have stripped 

 the mountains bare with the same 

 recklessness as they did those of 

 Greece, Asia Minor, Spain and Italy, 

 whose bald mountains and hills to 

 this very day speak eloquently of 

 the depredations oi those early peo- 

 ples. 



Apart from its later acquired ter- 

 ritory, says a writer in "The Tim- 

 berman," the old kingdom of Serbia, 

 possessed only two channels for the 

 export of timber : the broad but 

 very shallow Morava in the interior 

 and the Drina, which forms the 

 Austro-Serbian boundary. Both of 

 these rivers flow into the Danube. 

 Only upon these rivers would it 

 have been possible to drive the tim- 

 ber cut in the mountains. But the 

 Danube flows as the Austrian says, 



"the wrong way." It leads from the 

 central point of demand in the in- 

 terior of Europe to the Balkan 

 states. Countries such as Bulgaria, 

 Roumania and southern Russia have 

 at their disposal extensive forests 

 close at hand while Asiatic Turkey, 

 up to this time has had little use for 

 lumber. The streams which flow 

 through Central Europe, the Bug. 

 the Weischsel, the \\^arthe and the 

 Memel, carry large quantities of 

 timber down stream, wdiile operators 

 along the Danube are handicapped 

 by an upstream tow, and its attend- 

 ant high freight charges. It is 

 therefore easy to understand why 

 Serbia has played no great role in 

 the exportation of timber and forest 

 products and up to this time has cut 

 only such material as is required for 

 domestic consumption. 



The government began some 

 years ago to requisition small am- 

 ounts of firewood and ties for rail- 

 road construction in Moravatale, 

 near Kruschenwatz. In the valleys 

 and heights of the Tarage Moun- 

 tains, working up to an elevation of 

 2,000 feet, on the tributaries of the 

 Drina, the Traders' Bank of Bel- 

 grade has carried on considerable 

 logging activities with home capital. 

 The bank under$took building oper- 

 ations and erected a mirror factory 

 as well as a. large sawmill in Bel- 

 grade, where the logs coming down 

 the Drina and Danube are cut for 

 the domestic needs of the country. 

 Prior to the war, a large part of the 

 output of this mill was box material, 

 which the export trade of Serbia re- 

 quired for the shipment of agricul- 

 tural products. 



