440 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



necessities of tlie CoQimonwealth, and the relations, duties and re- 

 spoosibilities of the Board in view of these necessities. In the 

 course of this address occurred the following suggestion: 



"lr> an immense territory like our own, larger than that of most of the 

 nations of Europe, with its great diversity of surface, its lofty mountain ranges, 

 and its immense forests, wonderful opportunities exist for sanitary engineering 

 on an immense scale, determining in what direction water-sheds shall be en- 

 couraged and in what diverted; to what extent private corporations are to be 

 allowed to jeopardize the health of large sections of the country by obstructing 

 natural water-courses, for the purpose of manufacture or navigation, and de- 

 ciding how far certain forests act as natural barricades against devastating 

 winds, and should, therefore, be left untouched by the axe in order to maintain 

 a permanent average rainfall, and thus avert droughts, cyclones and floods." 



Whether or not this presentation of the subject had a stimula- 

 ting effect on the minds of those to whom it more particularly ap- 

 pealed, it was not very long thereafter that the question of forestry 

 began to be seriously considered by leaders in agricultural science 

 and by our legislators, with the well known result, not of assigning 

 this subject to the State Board of Health, but of the establishment 

 of the office of Forestry Commissioner, and the final incorporation 

 of this office as a bureau of the Department of Agriculture. No more 

 important sanitary work can be imagined than such judicious pro- 

 tection of forest areas as shall ensure an abundant supply of pure 

 water for the use of our people for generations to come, while at the 

 same time atTording recreation for the lover of sport, a resting place 

 for the weary and opportunity for recovery to the invalid. How well 

 this is being done is shown by the reports of the present indefatiga- 

 ble and learned Forestry Commissioner. The address continues: 



"The Board must also consider the relations of the country to the city as a 

 purveyor. The supply of fresh vegetables and fruits, and pure milk and other 

 dairy products to large communities of the utmost importance, and every effort 

 will be made to require and secure it. The transportation of live stock for 

 food needs to be very carefully watched and regulated, both that none but 

 healthy, and therefore, wholesome meat may be exposed for sale, and that in- 

 fectious and epidemic diseases may not be introduced among our native herds 

 and flocks from other localities." 



It is interesting and encouraging to glance over the pages of that 

 address, already yellowing with time and note what great advances 

 have already been made on all the lines of reform therein indicated. 



An Etjglish physician and sanitarian travelling in our country 

 about that time wrote as follows in one of their prominent Journals 

 of "the conditions here as he saw them:" 



"There Is much good work done under a species of semi-authority and suffe'-- 

 ance, and by volunteer exertion; but the plaint is the lack of a central authority 



