Greece. 279 



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 fre- 

 quent, in spite of heavy penalties. That a baneful ia- 

 fluence on the water condition and river fiow 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 reforms 

 appear, indeed, difficult. 



Firewood, 3 loads for each person, supposed to be 

 taken from the dead or otherwise useless trees, and small 

 dimension material is free to all. For the right to cut 

 workwood, the government charges a tax of 35 to 30 per 

 cent, of the value of the material, the price for this being 

 annually determined. On the material cut in private 

 forests, the government also levies a tax of from 12 to 

 18 per cent, of its value. This pernicious system of 

 promiscuous cutting leads to the most wasteful use 

 imaginable, not only high stumps, but large amounts of 

 good material are left in the woods so that it is estimated 

 that hardly 50 per cent, of what is cut is really utilized. 

 The cut, as far as the tax gives a clue to it, amoimts to 

 round 2.7 million cubic feet workwood, but with the fire- 

 wood' included it was estimated that near 90 million 

 cubic feet are cut annually. Importation to the amount 

 of 1.5 mUlion dollars,mostiy from Austria andEoumania, 

 makes up the deficit in work material, especially for the 

 box factories which manufacture the packages for the 



*See Allgtmeine Forst-und Jagdzeiiung, 1884, pP. 183 ft., and 1887, p. 327 ff. 

 for interesting details. 



