190 BOARD OF AGRICULTUBE. 



now seems unavoidably incident to our large cities, when 

 perhaps the water-closets shall be detached from the sewers, 

 and when each family shall receive its supply of deodorizers, 

 disinfectants and absorbents as regularly as its supply of 

 food, and all effete matter, made inoffensive, and returned to 

 the soil of the country. This may seem somewhat like going 

 back to the bucket system of the Orientals ; but that seems 

 to have proved superior to our system of sewage, and modi- 

 fied by modern facilities for transportation and by advanced 

 chemical science, may solve the problem which thus far has 

 baffled the skill of engineers, sanitarians and agriculturists. 



There is some movement in the right direction. The 

 State of New York, now owning 800,000 acres in the Adi- 

 rondack region, seeking to extend that area for the preserva- 

 tion of its forests ; the premiums offered by the general 

 government and by some of the Western States for the cul- 

 tivation of forest trees ; the Arbor Day, originating in Iowa 

 and now extending through the neighboring States, which has 

 been the cause of setting out millions of trees, and which 

 we trust is to become a national institution and legal holiday, 

 — all tend to impress the general public with the beneficent 

 effect of forests as conservators of the soil of our national 

 domain, and will tend especially to make all farmers feel that 

 not Jove alone is the cloud-compeller, but that they also have 

 that power and are responsible for its wise use. 



When the true value of irrigation shall be understood and 

 appreciated, less of our rain-fall will be allowed to be car- 

 ried to the sea by our rivers, but by steam-power or water- 

 power, or wind-power, which is many times greater than the 

 water-power, the contents of our streams and ponds and 

 lakes will be distrilmted over the land, to be absorbed by the 

 roots of the luxuriant vegetation and exhaled into the air by 

 its leaves, to be again precipitated as beneficent dew or rain. 



If we as citizens are determined to transmit to our children 

 our glorious heritage of civil and religious liberty, — pur- 

 chased by the blood of our fathers, — our free schools, free 

 press, free speech and free church, shall we not also as 

 farmers feel it a solemn duty to transmit to them those most 

 glorious of all blessings handed down from the ages, — a 

 fertile soil and beneficent climate, the prime necessities of 

 human existence. 



