NOTES AND QUERIES. I07 



the area to be planted during the next two years has been 

 put up. Planting, which will extend this season to about 150 

 acres, has been begun upon the ground which was prepared 

 last year, but for the present is stopped by the frost. The 

 area of the nursery at Ford has been extended, and at the 

 present time occupies about 5 acres. The following seedlings 

 for the nursery were purchased in the United Kingdom in 

 February last: — 45,000 Scots pine, 40,000 larch, 180,000 spruce, 

 15,000 Douglas spruce, and 5000 Sitka spruce; and at the 

 same time 100,000 spruce were purchased in Germany at a cost 

 of ;!^6, 17s. 4d. The following plants have been ordered in the 

 United Kingdom for direct planting on the hillside (no plants 

 having been ordered abroad for this purpose): — 150,000 larch, 

 80,000 Scots pine, 35,000 Douglas spruce, 45,000 silver fir, 

 240,000 spruce, and 40,000 Sitka spruce." 



Value of Work done by the " Unemployed." 



At a recent meeting of the London County Council, says the 

 Spectator, some very striking figures were given as to the value 

 of work done by the unemployed, — figures which amply prove the 

 truth of a remark which has been made again and again. Pauper 

 labour, like slave labour, is almost worthless. Work was done 

 during the winter 1908-9 in the London parks to the value of 

 ^£"7800. It cost the Central Unemployed Body to accomplish 

 this no less than ;^59,22o. In other words, work which labourers, 

 hired in the open market and paid high wages, could have done 

 for;^78oo cost ;^5 1,420 more when done by the unemployed, 

 — that is, by men who knew that they would not be discharged 

 if they idled, and who had no interest in their work, but only in 

 their wages. That, we venture to say, is the type of work which 

 will be universal when the State is the sole employer, and when 

 men do not choose their own form of work, but have it found 

 for them by that beneficent despot. It would, of course, have 

 been far cheaper to have given an allowance to the unemployed, 

 and not gone through the pretence of work. To assert that the 

 dignity of labour is maintained by such a transaction as that 

 which we are recording is ridiculous. There is, indeed, nothing 

 new in all this. The Commissioners of 1834, and all experienced 

 Poor Law authorities since, have always insisted on the 

 demoralisation and extravagance of relief works. 



