With the exception of the slopes of the Alps (2.5 million acres of spruce, fir, beech, larch), and the tops of the Apennines and remote plateaus (4.5 million acres), and of a few special places on which now and then even magnificent remnants of virgin forest may be found--lack of transportation having preserved them--most of the area is occupied by miserable brush forest, coppice or else open forest with scattered trees among a shrub undergrowth of thorns, hazel and chestnut (called macchia, i.e., chaparral), so that most Italians have never seen a real forest. Nevertheless, Italy is by no means as treeless as this condition of forest would imply, for trees (poplar, ash, elm) are dotting the plains and slopes, planted for vine supports and boundaries, unshapely through pollarding and lopping the branches for firewood. Olive and chestnut groves on the hills (of the former 2 million acres, of the latter over 400,000 acres planted for the fruit), and 8.5 million acres in vineyards add to the wooded appearance of the country and to the wood supply. The annual product of firewood from these planted trees is estimated at 6 million cords. On the sand dunes and near the seashore, especially in the marshes, the Maritime, the Aleppo Pine, and the umbrella-shaped _Pinus pinea_, and picturesque Cypresses are sometimes found in small groves, while the calcareous hills in this region up to 1200 feet are studded with olives, cork and evergreen oak. Osier growing is here also quite extensively practiced. In the mountains, above the 2700 foot level, conifer forest, composed of _Pinus silvestris_ and _laricio_, and _Abies pectinata_, has been reduced to less than 7 per cent. of the whole, mixed conifer and deciduous forest represents 4 per cent., the bulk being deciduous forest of oak (several species) and beech, with chestnut. Forty-eight per cent. of the forest area is in coppice (_ceduo_), and of the 52 per cent. of high forest, the bulk is managed under selection system (_a scelta_), a small part under clearing system (_ad alto fusto_), although management can hardly be said to exist except in small groves.