283 Mediterranean Peninsulas. 



By general law the State has the right to surveillance 

 of private property, although the extent of this right is 

 not fully defined. The government may take for its own 

 use, by paying for it, upwards of one-sixth of the annual 

 cut; it collects a tax of 12 to 18 per cent, for all 

 workwood cut; it forbids the pasturing of woods that 

 have been burned within 10 years, and obliges all owners 

 of over 1300 acres to employ forest guards. This and 

 other interference with property rights naturally acts as 

 deterrent to private forest management. A notable ex- 

 ception is the small private royal forest property near 

 Athens, which, since 1872 under a Danish forester, 

 appears to have been managed under forestry principles. 



A thorough re-organization of the forest service was 

 to be effected in 1893, when 20 district foresters were 

 employed, the number of forest inspectors was increased 

 to four, ajid a regular Division of Forestry was in- 

 stituted in the finance department. The general police 

 or gendarmerie was continued as forest guards. Until a 

 native personnel could be educated by sending young 

 men to Germany, foreigners were to be employed for the 

 making of working plans. 



Yet in 1896 the then Director of the Forest Depart- 

 ment, a lawyer, still complains of the absence of a 

 proper organization and of any personnel with forestry 

 knowledge. Apparently no progress had been made. In 

 that year, however, the gendarmerie was to be replaced 

 by forest guards (53 superior and 298 subaltern) who 

 were to be appointed from graduates of a special secon- 

 dary school, which had been instituted at Vytina some 

 two years before. This replacement could, of course, not 

 be effected at once, since hardly more than 35 could be 



