The forest in northern and middle Greece is confined to the two rugged mountain ranges with numerous spurs which run parallel, north and south, with Mt. Olympus (nearly 9,000 feet) and Mt. Pindus (6,000 feet) the highest elevations. The large fertile plains of Thessaly and Boeotia are forestless. So is the large Arcadian plateau of the Peloponnesus, and the other smaller, hot but fertile plains and plateaus. The most valuable conifer forest is found on the higher ranges between the 2,500 and 5,000 foot level, below the snow-clad mountain tops, where especially two species of fir, _Abies Apollinis_ and _Abies reginæ Amaliae_ (a species remarkable for its sprouting habit), with other firs and several species of _Juniperus_ and _Cupressus_, form sometimes extensive forests. Other common trees are chestnut, sycamore, several species of oak and poplar, and, on the coast, _Pinus halepensis_. The firs occupy about 35 per cent. of the forest area, oaks and deciduous forest 45 per cent. Among the forest products which are exported, we find galls, vermillion and sumach prominent. It is believed that Greece in ancient times was more fertile than it is now, and that the deterioration is due to deforestation. Undoubtedly soil conditions favored such deterioration, for, with the exception of the Pindus range, which is composed of metamorphic rock, a poor, dry limestone is characteristic of the country except where fertile, alluvial and diluvial deposits cover it in valleys along the coast. The climate is, however, so favorable that even the poor soil would readily reclothe itself if left alone. The winters are short, hardly three months, and with hardly any snow or ice except on the high mountains, making the vegetative period nine months; and, with temperature ranges from 20 to 106 degrees F.; rainfall average 400 mm.; the summers, to be sure, rainless and dry, but the other seasons humid, somewhat less than in middle Europe, rapid growth is the result of these conditions. But the continued pasturing of goats and sheep--some six million--prevents any natural reforestation. Increased taxation on this industry has had no effect, and the practice of permitting the people to gather dry wood for fuel is an incentive for making dry wood by setting fires, which also serve to improve the pasture; perhaps nowhere are forest fires more frequent, in spite of heavy penalties. That a baneful influence on the water condition and river flow has been the result is historically demonstrated by Chloros.[13] [13] See _Allgemeine Forst- und Jagdzeitung 1884_, p. 183 ff., and 1887, p. 327 ff. for interesting details. In the mountains some fine and quite extensive bodies of fir still exist, lack of transportation having preserved them. Elsewhere the rights of user, and the herding of goats are so well established that reforms appear, indeed, difficult.