The fields near the vil lages produce wheat and barley for bread, oats and corn for the animals, and sometimes tobacco to sell. The people can afford to send bales of wool, skins of animals, and tobacco long distances on muleback because those products bring a high price per pound.
In some of the localities that are near the few railroads, or the seacoast, or the Danube River, plums are grown, some of which are used to make jam that is sent to England. Dried prunes are sent from Serbia and Bosnia to Bordeaux, France, where they are repacked and sold as French prunes.
528. The Balkan villages.—As in most parts of Europe, the farmers usually live in villages. The houses often have stone walls, dirt floors, and roofs thatched with straw. Thus the only wood necessary is that used for doors, windows, and rafters. In other sec tions, the house has walls of mud plastered on lath that are nailed to a wooden framework. Owing to the small amount of trade, the farmers' village is often almost self-sup porting. The women spin by hand the wool from their sheep, and then weave it into cloth, of which they make clothing. Women and girls knit thick woolen stockings, some times putting in gay colors and designs. Often they knit as they walk about watching the flocks at pasture.
The Balkan people love bright colors. They have many gay costumes, each locality having its own style, which perhaps has not been changed for five hun dred years. There are many feast days and holidays. Then the people put on their best clothes and have music, singing, and folk dancing.
529. Undeveloped re sources.—The Balkans are a region in which there is room for a great increase of industry, wealth, and com fort. Why may there be a great increase of wealth? Six words will give the answer: education, work, roads, machines, minerals, manufacture.
Many of the Balkan peo ple cannot yet read and write; they work inefficiently, and as nations they are poor. In the days of the Turkish rule it scarcely paid the people to save either money or goods, because the Turkish tax gatherer would come and take away every thing that could be moved. How does this affect the country in which it happens? Now the Turkish rule is ended, and although Serbia and Bulgaria lost almost half of their men through the World War, these people have already settled down to build up their countries.
We can easily see that trade has scarcely begun in Albania. The country is larger than New Hampshire and has twice as many people, but there is not a mile of railroad within its limits. There is good land in some of its valleys, and fine pine timber on some of its mountains.
The city of Uskub is located on the Bel grade-Saloniki railroad at a place where a short branch line comes in from the west. This little town is the trading center for a million and a half of people; as many as live in the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. These people are living in villages up the valleys, and over the hills, in places where nearly all of their trade must go by wagon or pack-mule. More roads and more railroads are needed to develop modern trade in the Balkan region. Within the last hundred years such opportunities for trade have come to nearly all the other places in all the continents of the world where white people live.
530. The coming of machinery.—Most of the farming is done by hand and with the help of crude implements. Some people think that the grain yields of Bulgaria could be doubled if the people had better tools and could learn the methods which are very well known to the people of most other countries.
531. Minerals.—Minerals may help to make the Balkans as prosperous as the Cen tral European Uplands. Serbia has rich mines of copper and iron. For a long time some gold has been mined and there are several small coal fields. All this mineral wealth may furnish work for many people.
532. Labor supply.—This region has one great resource necessary for manufacturing, and that is labor supply. Its population is much more dense than that of any agri cultural section of the United States, and a dense population furnishes a supply of labor for factories. In the past the Balkan people have been making their own clothes by hand and also selling carpets that they weave by hand.. If they should get machinery from England, France, and America, they could make many times as much carpet or cloth.
If the Balkans can have peace we may expect their agricultural output to double, their mineral output to much more than double, and many little valley villages to grow into manufacturing towns with the aid of coal from their hills and water power from their mountain streams.
The Balkan countries are very jealous of their natural resources and are watchful to see that foreign capital does not secure too powerful a hold on their countries. Laws requiring that a majority of stock shall be held by the local government and by local people tend to discourage foreign capital. But industrial leadership may develop among those Bulgars, Serbs, Croats, and Greeks who have lived for a time in the United States and, having gained wealth and business knowledge, now wish to go back to their native land to help make it prosperous and progressive.