These details are merely brought forward to illustrate the great variation both in the progress of development and in the present conditions in different parts of the empire, similar differences being found in other portions. Suffice it to say that in round numbers about fifteen hundred thousand acres are managed under more or less intensive working plans, and of the balance seven million acres are farmers’ woodlots on which only silvicultural treatment is necessary. 6. _Development of Silviculture._ The necessity for conservative forest use and reforestation did not arise as early in Austria as it did in Germany. It was not until the middle of the 19th century that this necessity became apparent in most of the provinces, when German experiences in silviculture could be readily utilized. In Bohemia, the clearing system with artificial reforestation, mostly by seed, had been introduced at the beginning of the century for the conifer forests, planting as a rule being resorted to only in fail places. For this planting, wildlings were mostly used. In the broad-leaved forest, the selection system, and to some extent the shelterwood method, were largely followed. The strip system was also much employed, and, as the felling areas were often made too large, undue increase of undesirable softwoods resulted. During the last 50 years, silvicultural theory 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 occupied 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, Dalmatia, 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 overdrained. Originally well forested with conifers and hardwoods, it had furnished for ages ship timber and other wood supplies to the Venetians. Through reckless cutting, burning and pasturing by the small farmers it had become almost entirely denuded, natural reforestation being prevented by these practices combined with the dryness of the soil, intensified by the deforestation. For centuries, countless laws were passed to stop the progress of devastation, but without effect. The first attempt at planting was made by the city of Trieste in 1842, and found some imitators, but with meager result. In 1865, the Austrian government, acting upon representations of the Forestry Association, undertook to encourage 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 assistance with plant material and money.