1885.] EDITORIAL NOTES. 473 



Afforesting Ikeland. — We extract tlie following from the 

 IJeport of the Select Committee appointed to inquire into the 

 present condition of manufacturing and productive industries of 

 Ireland : — 



" The question of utilizing 1»y Forestry the immense tracts of waste 

 land in Ireland, much of which is incapable of profitable tillage, has 

 also been brought prominently before your Committee, and they 

 would remark that no matter of greater urgency as affecting the 

 future of that country demands serious consideration, or one more 

 intimately bound up with its commercial prosperity. The evidence 

 already given in regard to Forestry appears to point very distinctly 

 to the necessity of introducing an extensive system of afforesting 

 into Ireland. The reintroduction of many industries once flourishing 

 there, such as iron-smelting and the utilization of other metals, 

 proved before your Committee to be abundant, cannot be looked for 

 until charcoal resumes its place as fuel, more especially as the coal 

 supply of Ireland is very small compared with that of England, 

 Wales, and Scotland." 



It has also been given in evidence that planting is much needed 

 as a shelter for men and animals, for the protection of all agri- 

 cultural crops from the force of prevailing winds, for the retention 

 and enrichment of the soil on the mountain slopes, for the preven- 

 tion of further denudation of uplands, and of the downpour of silt, 

 which, descending in enormous quantities, blocks up streams and 

 watercourses, obstructing drains, and causing destruction by floods 

 and torrents, as in the case of the Bann, the Shannon, and other 

 rivers. The importance of Forestry in regard to all handicrafts and 

 manufactures in which wood forms an essential ingredient has been 

 largely demonstrated, while the industries dependent on the supply 

 of willows and osiers show that a very important manufacture 

 cannot be carried out successfully without an abundant supply of 

 home-"rown material. 



Steel versus Wood Eailway Sleepers. — The Chairman of the" 

 Directors of the Staftbrdshire Steel and Iron Company having 

 written to the General Manager of the IMidland Eailway Company, 

 touching the report that the latter Company had purchased 10,000 

 tons of steel sleepers from Belgium, has received the following 

 reply : " It is quite true that the Midland Company has ordered a 

 sample lot of steel sleepers from Belgium, but the quantity is not 

 10,000 but 3000. AVe applied to several houses in this country 

 for tenders, and found that they had not at present the necessary 

 plant for manufacturing them ; and as it is uncertain whether we 



