The efforts to secure improvement in the treatment of forest resources have been more active and strenuous in Italy than in Greece. They were induced especially by the urgent need of protecting watersheds, the rivers throughout Italy having been turned into torrents by deforestation. But, owing to the weakness of the government and to poverty, the actual execution of the very good laws has lagged behind. Indeed, while ample legislation has been enacted, the people, overburdened with debt, and needing the small income that can be derived from pasturing or renting the pasture in the woods, make it difficult to carry on any reform, and the enforcement of the laws has again and again led to serious trouble. “Forestry is a sore point in the national economy of Italy, as it involves sacrifice of money and time.” Italy, therefore, is still in the transition period from forestal rapine to forest culture.
Densely populated (33 million on 110,600 square miles), with fully one-fifth of its area unproductive, or at least unused, and one-quarter of this almost or quite beyond redemption, no country offers better opportunities for studying the evil effects of deforestation on soil and waterflow. As a result of the combination of geology (slates and limestones), topography (steep slopes), climate, and forest devastation or destruction, mainly by pasturage of goats (two million), the Italian rivers are invariably flooded in March and mostly dry in summer; the melting of the snow coinciding with the heavy spring rains turns them into raging torrents (_fiumare_), silting over the fertile lands in the valleys and occasional landslides in the mountain country, where extensive tracts are nearly bare of vegetation. Especially the rivers around Bologna, which in 1897 again caused damage in excess of one million dollars, are dreaded.
Situated similarly to Greece as regards accessibility and climate, and similarly torn by wars and political strife, and in unstable conditions for centuries, Italy has in proportion to population, if not to area, reduced her forest resources even more than Greece; less than one-third of an acre per capita remains, with a total of somewhat over twelve million acres, or about 17 per cent. of the land area, and this includes much useless brushland, over 2 million acres. Apparently, if the uncertain statistics may be relied upon, a reduction of several million acres has taken place even since 1870. Some 15 million acres of waste land and swamps offer ample opportunity for increasing this forest area without infringing on the 42 million acres of usefully employed agricultural soil.