66 FORESTS, WOODS, AND TREES 
species can be established on pit and spoil mounds, im- 
proving the amenities of the district and constituting a 
hygienic measure of some importance. In other colliery 
districts the lesson ought to be taken to heart. All 
districts should organise themselves to supply the shortage 
of timber that is certain in the future, instead of leaving 
thousands of acres to waste which bring in no rent and no 
profit. This work is capable of great extension, but in 
localities with chemical works trees may prove un- 
successful. 
The School Plantations of the Black Country may be 
imitated in all parts of rural England and in the sister 
countries. In some parts of France little forestry societies 
(3) have been formed in connection with the schools, a 
movement due to M. Mayet, schoolmaster at Avignon-lés- 
Saint-Claude (Jura). There were in 1910 about 200 of 
these little societies, which develop among the children the 
love of trees and the elements of forestry. Moreover, the 
scholars themselves make plantations under the direction of 
the teachers, and already in 1910 they had planted some 
hundreds of acres and set out more than 2,000,000 trees 
in the communal forests. Certain communes in the east 
of France have set aside for the scholars experimental plots, 
well fenced and netted, where experiments in planting and 
raising seedlings have been carried out, resulting in some 
cases in the initiation of improvements in the great forests. 
In the regions of the Loire and Vosges some of the school 
forestry societies have been given funds-by generous donors, 
which are applied to the acquisition of land for planting, the 
proceeds of the woods so created being assigned to the 
schoolmaster as a supplement to his pension. 
Just as the tiny seed may become a great tree, so these 
little village and school societies may become the nucleus of 
ereat social progress. To get the scholars and the teachers 
into the open air, and in touch with farming, gardening, and 
forestry, will be the great step towards the hygiene of the 
Social Organism. 
I may here add some notes concerning the reclamation 
