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towards the rear of the lot, where it is generally permitted to soak into the earth. Jf 

 drained into the central coppice of the block, it would secure a rank and luxuriant growth, 

 which would substantially absorb and neutralize this poisonous drainage. The village 

 would be clothed with grass, which would need no care, which during all the summer 

 months would be vocal with the songs of the birds and which would do more than any 

 sanitary board is likely to do to secure the health of the citizens. 



Almost every farm has patches of waste land, only needing enough care to prevent 

 the intrusion of domestic animals, to convert them in a few years into such coppices. In 

 very large parts of the country these patches of waste land are so large and numerous that 

 if ihey were all thus utilized the full climatic influences to be derived from forest culture 

 would be obtained. The beginning of the planting of such coppices in villages and about 

 farm houses would materially tend to a similar appropriation of all the waste patches, cut 

 swamps, and rocky hills upon the farm. In them the strong growing varieties of trees 

 would gradually overshadow the others and ultimately acquire a growth fitting them for 

 use for timber. But the main advantages would be climatic and sanitary. Every such 

 coppice would discharge the functions of a forest, which isolated trees and wind-breaks do 

 not do. All the rain falling upon them would be absorbed by the earth (or sent back to 

 the air by evaporation) and sinking downwards until impervious strata were reached, 

 would then flow away to become in the aggregate the sources of springs. 



In the village the sanitary influence would bo of the first importance. The diflSculties 

 in the way of the safe distribution of household oflal are not fully appreciated. In a small 

 village where there is an efficient board of health and where much more than ordinary 

 care is taken to guard against the pollution of the soil, I have this summer made chemical 

 tests of the water from forty-seven wells taken in consecutive order. All but four of 

 them gave unmistakable evidence of defilement from kitchen slops or human excreta. 

 If the house drainage of each lot could be carried by cemented pipes into such a coppice 

 into the centre of each block, the rank growth of vegetation then induced would absorb 

 and neutralize this poison and accomplish much toward the solution of a very serious and 

 difficult problem. In such a coppice of four square rods the accumulation of night soil of 

 an ordinary family, if properly composted, may be safely spread upon the surface to be 

 rendered innoxious by oxidization or to be appropriated by the growing vegetation. If the 

 kitchen drain came to the surface in it, the deleterious influence of the kitchen slops would 

 probably be fully neutralized. When drainage to a water-course cannot be secured such 

 a termination of the kitchen drain is the best practicable. 



The following paper has a general bearing upon the whole subject from a Canadiaji 

 stand-point, and has been prepared by a well known Canadian : — 



FOKESTRY IN CANADA. 

 By a. T. Drummond, Montreal. 



Perhaps no trade question has around it at the present time so much interest as that 

 of the conservation of our forests with a view to the continuance of the lumber industry. 

 This industry has once more revived, and very large demands are now being made on our 

 lumber supplies. Public attention cannot, however, be too strongly directed to the fact 

 that these timber supplies are not unlimited. The drain which has been going on for 

 thirty years past on the resources of our forests, has been so vast and so continued that 

 the questions are now being forced on us — for how long a time can tliese resources be 

 depended on, and what efl"orts are being made to provide for that supply being continuous 1 

 It is perfectly clear that under the present system of farming out the public lands, the 

 time is near at hand when the supply of merchantable standing timber will not equal the 

 demands made upon it, and it is imperative that means should at once be adopted to pre- 

 8(!rve and recuperate these timber lands. Those who are familiar with the localities — 

 each year extending farther northward and westward — where the lumbermen obtain their 

 logs, cannot be blind to the fact that the area in which the pine may be expected to be 



