Page:EB1911 - Volume 04.djvu/798

 the eastern districts camels are also employed. The Bulgarian horses are small, but remarkably hardy, wiry and intelligent; they are as a rule unfitted for draught and cavalry purposes. The best sheep are found in the district of Karnobat in Eastern Rumelia. The number of goats in the country tends to decline, a relatively high tax being imposed on these animals owing to the injury they inflict on young trees. The average price of oxen is £5 each, draught oxen £12 the pair, buffaloes £14 the pair, cows £2, horses £6, sheep, 7s., goats 5s., each. The principal cereals are wheat, maize, rye, barley, oats and millet. The cultivation of maize is increasing in the Danubian and eastern districts. Rice-fields are found in the neighbourhood of Philippopolis. Cereals represent about 80% of the total exports. Besides grain, Bulgaria produces wine, tobacco, attar of roses, silk and cotton. The quality of the grape is excellent, and could the peasants be induced to abandon their highly primitive mode of wine-making the Bulgarian vintages would rank among the best European growths. The tobacco, which is not of the highest quality, is grown in considerable quantities for home consumption and only an insignificant amount is exported. The best tobacco-fields in Bulgaria are on the northern slopes of Rhodope, but the southern declivity, which produces the famous Kavala growth, is more adapted to the cultivation of the plant. The rose-fields of Kazanlyk and Karlovo lie in the sheltered valleys between the Balkans and the parallel chains of the Sredna Gora and Karaja Dagh. About 6000 ℔ of the rose-essence is annually exported, being valued from £12 to £14 per ℔. Beetroot is cultivated in the neighbourhood of Sofia. Sericulture, formerly an important industry, has declined owing to disease among the silkworms, but efforts are being made to revive it with promise of success. Cotton is grown in the southern districts of Eastern Rumelia.

Peasant proprietorship is universal, the small freeholds averaging about 18 acres each. There are scarcely any large estates owned by individuals, but some of the monasteries possess considerable domains. The large tchifliks, or farms, formerly belonging to Turkish landowners, have been divided among the peasants. The rural proprietors enjoy the right of pasturing their cattle on the common lands belonging to each village, and of cutting wood in the state forests. They live in a condition of rude comfort, and poverty is practically unknown, except in the towns. A peculiarly interesting feature in Bulgarian agricultural life is the zadruga, or house-community, a patriarchal institution apparently dating from prehistoric times. Family groups, sometimes numbering several dozen persons, dwell together on a farm in the observance of strictly communistic principles. The association is ruled by a house-father (domakin, stareïshina), and a house-mother (domakinia), who assign to the members their respective tasks. In addition to the farm work the members often practise various trades, the proceeds of which are paid into the general treasury. The community sometimes includes a priest, whose fees for baptisms, &c., augment the common fund. The national aptitude for combination is also displayed in the associations of market gardeners (gradinarski druzhini, taifi), who in the spring leave their native districts for the purpose of cultivating gardens in the neighbourhood of some town, either in Bulgaria or abroad, returning in the autumn, when they divide the profits of the enterprise; the number of persons annually thus engaged probably exceeds 10,000. Associations for various agricultural, mining and industrial undertakings and provident societies are numerous: the handicraftsmen in the towns are organized in esnafs or gilds.

Manufactures.—The development of manufacturing enterprise on a large scale has been retarded by want of capital. The principal establishments for the native manufactures of aba and shayak (rough and fine homespuns), and of gaitan (braided embroidery) are at Sliven and Gabrovo respectively. The Bulgarian homespuns, which are made of pure wool, are of admirable quality. The exportation of textiles is almost exclusively to Turkey: value in 1806, £104,046; in 1898, £144,726; in 1904, £108,685. Unfortunately the home demand for native fabrics is diminishing owing to foreign competition; the smaller textile industries are declining, and the picturesque, durable, and comfortable costume of the country is giving way to cheap ready-made clothing imported from Austria. The government has endeavoured to stimulate the home industry by ordering all persons in its employment to wear the native cloth, and the army is supplied almost exclusively by the factories at Sliven. A great number of small distilleries exist throughout the country; there are breweries in all the principal towns, tanneries at Sevlievo, Varna, &c., numerous corn-mills worked by water and steam, and sawmills, turned by the mountain torrents, in the Balkans and Rhodope. A certain amount of foreign capital has been invested in industrial enterprises; the most notable are sugar-refineries in the neighbourhood of Sofia and Philippopolis, and a cotton-spinning mill at Varna, on which an English company has expended about £60,000.

Commerce.—The usages of internal commerce have been considerably modified by the development of communications. The primitive system of barter in kind still exists in the rural districts, but is gradually disappearing. The great fairs (panaïri,  ) held at Eski-Jumaia, Dobritch and other towns, which formerly attracted multitudes of foreigners as well as natives, have lost much of their importance; a considerable amount of business, however, is still transacted at these gatherings, of which ninety-seven were held in 1898. The principal seats of the export trade are Varna, Burgas and Baltchik on the Black Sea, and Svishtov, Rustchuk, Nikopolis, Silistria, Rakhovo, and Vidin on the Danube. The chief centres of distribution for imports are Varna, Sofia, Rustchuk, Philippopolis and Burgas. About 10% of the exports passes over the Turkish frontier, but the government is making great efforts to divert the trade to Varna and Burgas, and important harbour works have been carried out at both these ports. The new port of Burgas was formally opened in 1904, that of Varna in 1906.

In 1887 the total value of Bulgarian foreign commerce was £4,419,589. The following table gives the values for the six years ending 1904. The great fluctuations in the exports are due to the variations of the harvest, on which the prosperity of the country practically depends:—

The principal exports are cereals, live stock, homespuns, hides, cheese, eggs, attar of roses. Exports to the United Kingdom in 1900 were valued at £239,665; in 1904 at £989,127. The principal imports are textiles, metal goods, colonial goods, implements, furniture, leather, petroleum. Imports from the United Kingdom in 1900, £301,150; in 1904, £793,972.

The National Bank, a state institution with a capital of £400,000, has its central establishment at Sofia, and branches at Philippopolis, Rustchuk, Varna, Trnovo and Burgas. Besides conducting the ordinary banking operations, it issues loans on mortgage. Four other banks have been founded at Sofia by groups of foreign and native capitalists. There are several private banks in the country. The Imperial Ottoman Bank and the Industrial Bank of Kiev have branches at Philippopolis and Sofia respectively. The agricultural chests, founded by Midhat Pasha in 1863, and reorganized in 1894, have done much to rescue the peasantry from the hands of usurers. They serve as treasuries for the local administration, accept deposits at interest, and make loans to the peasants on mortgage or the security of two solvent landowners at 8%. Their capital in 1887 was £569,260; in 1904, £1,440,000. Since 1893 they have been constituted as the “Bulgarian Agricultural Bank”; the central direction is at Sofia. The post-office savings bank, established 1896, had in 1905 a capital of £1,360,560.

There are over 200 registered provident societies in the country. The legal rate of interest is 10%, but much higher rates are not uncommon.

Bulgaria, like the neighbouring states of the Peninsula, has adopted the metric system. Turkish weights and measures, however, are still largely employed in local commerce. The monetary unit is the lev, or “lion” (pl. leva), nominally equal to the franc, with its submultiple the stotinka (pl.-ki), or centime. The coinage consists of nickel and bronze coins (2, 5, 10 and 20 stotinki) and silver coins