eir 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, L104,046; in 1898, L144,726; in 1904, L108,685.
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 L60,000.

_Commerce._--The usages of internal commerce have been considerably
modified by the developmen