Stilvicultural Development. 159 
and practice developed very much on the same lines as in 
Germany, more intensively in the densely populated and 
more accessible regions and less so in the more distant 
and thinly settled mountain districts. 
The most noted work of reforestation which has oc- 
cupied Austrian foresters for the last forty years or more 
is that of the “Karst,” a name applied to the waste lands 
in the mountain and hill country of Istria, Trieste, Dal- 
matia, Montenegro and adjacent territory skirting the 
Adriatic Sea. It is a dry limestone country of some 
600,000 acres in extent, stony and rough and over- 
drained. Originally well forested with conifers and 
hardwoods it had furnished for ages ship timber and 
other wood supplies to the Venetians. Through reck- 
less cutting, burning and pasturing by the small farmers 
it had become almost entirely denuded, natural refor- 
estation being prevented by these practices combined 
with the dryness of the soil, intensified by the deforesta- 
tion. 
For centuries countless laws were passed to stop the 
progress of devastation, but without effect. 
The first attempt at planting was made by Trieste in 
1842 and found some imitators, but with meager result. 
In 1865 the Austrian government, acting upon repre- 
sentations of the Forestry Association, undertook to en- 
courage and assist private landowners in reforesting 
their Karst lands by remitting taxes on reforested lands 
for a period of years, by technical advice and by assist- 
ance with plant material and money. 
By this move so much land was withdrawn from pas- 
ture and taxation that opposition was aroused among the 
cattle owners, which led to additional legislation during 
