GREECE. This once celebrated country has little to interest us in respect to its present industry and commerce. In the plains of the Morea the peasantry are not proprietors, all the land belonging either to the state or to the wealthy families of the primates or archontes. In the mountains there is a great number of small proprietors, generally thrifty and indus trious husbandmen. The resources of the continental part of the kingdom are derived chiefly from agriculture. There are about 120,000 families of cultivators of the soil, of which 20,000 are proprietors. The vineyards are almost all private property. There are also about 215,000 olive trees, chiefly in Attica, Megaris, and the eparchy of Salons, a great part of which is national property. Greece produces about two-thirds of the corn required for its consumption. Wheat, barley, and Indian corn are the species cultivated; oats and rye are not in use. Tobacco thrives, es pecially near Argos and Calamata, and cotton grows also in considerable quantity. The wine made is enough for the home consump tion ; it is generally good.bodied, but for want of proper management in making it, and of cellars, it does not keep beyond a year or two. Currants are cultivated in various districts, especially in the eparchies of Patras and Vos• titza, and are of excellent quality. The olives are of good quality, but the art of pressing and refining the oil is very imperfectly under stood, and the oil is inferior to that of Pro vence. Silk is made in Messenia and Laconica, and also at Tinos, and in other islands, but is inferior to the Italian silk. The almond, the
fig, the chestnut, the orange, and the lemon thrive well. Horned cattle are not numerous, nor sufficient for the labours of the field, for which they are almost exclusively used, and oxen are imported for that purpose from Thessaly and Asia Minor. There, are, how ever, numerous flocks of sheep and goats, which migrate to the mountains in the spring, and return to the plains after the harvest. The produce of wool is considerable, but of a coarse kind, and is used chiefly for home manufacture. Pigs are scarce, except in Arcadia. The only milk used is that of ewes and goats, and the butter and cheese made of it is very inferior. The fine forests with which the mountains were once clothed have been sadly wasted, and for the most part en tirely destroyed.
The commerce and navigation of Greece are centered in the ports of Nauplia, Mesol onghi, Patras, Galaxidi, and the islands of Hydra, Spezia, and, above all, Syra. The number of Greek merchant vessels is some what over 1000, exclusive of small craft, or coasting boats. The extensive line of coast and the numerous islands supply a multitude of good sailors. The principal traffic of the Greek vessels is the carrying trade between the ports of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The Exports from Great Britain to Greece in 1848 amounted in value to 231,8341. Among the imports from Greece in the same year were 225,175 cwts. of currants, being more than half of our consumption.