deforestation, which has been most rapid along the coast, in the neighbourhood of towns, and wherever railways or roads facilitate transport. Profits were obtained by putting up the forestry rights to auction or allowing villagers to cut trees on payment of certain dues; and tithe is paid on wood sold by private or corporate owners. Much damage has been done by fire as well as by indiscriminate felling. A great hindrance to the growth of trees are the flocks of goats which keep down all young wood within reach, and saplings are often felled merely for the sake of fodder. Sheepfarmers too are hostile to trees, on which wool is lost by rubbing. Quite recently steps have been taken to place the forestry of the Empire on a better footing. An Austrian expert has been called in to advise, a better inspection service instituted, and exploitation regulated by new enactments. One of these (1917) provides that foreign companies receiving concessions must offer half their shares for a period of three months to Ottoman subjects.
Timber from the forests is used mainly for fuel, either raw or in the form of charcoal; rough planks, posts, &c., are also made, but the better qualities of wood for building and cabinet-making are imported. In 1907-8 the output of timber in the vilayets of Aleppo, Damascus, and Beirut was worth 6,573,168 piastres (1,645,000 frs.); with the addition of the production of the Lebanon, of wood used privately by villagers, and various by-products (gall-nuts, pine seeds, sumach leaves, &c.), the annual value of the forests may be put at three or four million francs.
(d) Land-Tenure
Agricultural methods and conditions have depended in no small degree on the complicated system of landtenure in Turkey, which is described at length in Turkey in Europe (No. 16 of this series), pp. 92 seq.; the following account summarises the main points.
