In 1885, three French foresters were called in to organize a State forest department and to inaugurate the making of working plans. The personnel (25 inspectors and 89 district officers) being insufficient, and wood prices low (the income from state property being not over $400,000), the progress of the work was slow. Although, in 1894, the income had doubled, the administrative forces had not been enlarged to any great extent (137 foresters of various grades), and by that time only 150,000 acres had been brought under working plans. By 1900, about 200,000 acres of State property, or 14 per cent., and 500,000 acres of private forest, or 22 per cent., were organized in some fashion. Lack of means of transportation, however, prevents a really well regulated management. Altogether only 65 per cent. of the State property is accessible so that it can be worked, and the working plans consist mainly in leaving a number of seed trees. In 1889, a Forestry Association (_Progressul Silvic_) was formed, which with its organ, _Revista pâdurilor_, pushes the propaganda. In 1890, an energetic Minister of Domains, Carp, sought strenuously to bring improvement into the situation. A budget of $500,000 for foresters’ dwellings was secured to bring the forest managers into closer contact with their charges, a planting fund of $100,000, later increased to $140,000 per annum, was voted, and reforestation and reclamation of sand dunes was begun. A forest improvement fund was inaugurated in 1892 by setting aside 2 per cent. of the gross forest yield. But, in the political struggles, Carp’s party was displaced, and, depression in agricultural prosperity causing financial distress, an era of increased exploitation followed, so that the export of forest products, largely cooperage, (mainly to Greece, Italy and France) which had been declining to less than half, rose again to about four million dollars annually. The financial embarrassment of the State led even to a proposition to sell State forests, but, before contracts for this purpose were consummated, relief came and the danger was averted. The State cuts about 22,000 acres annually, yielding about $1,000,000, the administration costing (in 1903) $240,000, leaving a net yield of 30 cents per acre. In 1898, the Forest Department, in the Direction of Domains under the Ministry of Agriculture consisted of a Forest Director with 156 foresters academically educated (mostly in France, and since 1892 in the Agricultural Institute at Bucharest), and over 2,500 underforesters and guards. Of some 30,000 acres of sand dunes, one-half belonging to the State, about 18,000 acres have been recovered by planting Black Locust, and some 9,000 acres of plains country have been reforested, for which 330 acres of nurseries furnish the material. In spite of all these efforts, excessive pasturing, although forbidden in the State forest, and fires continue to devastate the property.