Canadian Forestry Journal. May. ipi6. 



531 



shelters, which will last longer than 

 wooden ones, and in summer may 

 prevent the spread of fires started 

 by passing engines. — (Popular Me- 

 chanics Magazine.) 



Cork Foiests 



The cork oak is a kind of jack at 

 all trades among trees, and its ser- 

 vice indicates well the kind of new 

 freedom that trees may give us by 

 their new helpfulness if we will just 

 give them a chance. If the garden 

 of Eden story had been written in 

 Spain or Portugal I think the for- 

 tunate couple would have been 

 placde in possession of a cork forest. 

 If a man in either of these countries 

 has a forest of good cork trees you 

 will find him in Madrid, Lisbon or 

 Paris. His cork forest works for 

 him, and he stays in town. 



Cork trees grow on the rockiest 

 and poorest land. The poorer the 

 land the finer the quality of the cork. 

 Every eight or ten years the outer 

 bark is stripped from the trees to 

 furnish the ever more highly prized 

 cork of commerce. By dividing the 

 land up into blocks this decennial 

 harvest will produce a fairly regu- 

 lar income. 



These same oak trees produce 

 acorns, often heavily, which are sold 

 to some farmer, who drives his herds 

 of lean hogs into the forest, where 

 they harvest the acorns and turn 

 them into salable meat. A Portu- 

 guese hog is expected to gain two 

 pounds a day for ninety days when 

 acorns are ripe. 



More than this, there is beneath 

 the oak trees some herbage fit for 

 goats to eat. Thus the cork forest 

 owner in Lisbon gets income from 

 three contractors — the cork strip- 

 per, the pork raiser and the goat 

 raiser. And with care the forest 

 lasts forever. The individual cork 

 tree is good for a hundred years or 

 more, after which it is a fine big 

 salable tree, with enough young ones 

 near it to take its place when it is 

 gone to market. In Portugal a cork 



tree, ready for its third stripping, is 

 considered worth $25. When in full 

 bearing an acre of these oaks will 

 yield from one to three tons of cork, 

 at a stripping, now worth about S70 

 a ton to the grower. Most of this is 

 profit. The pork is profit. It is the 

 common rule that the income from 

 the pasture pays the small cost of 

 caring for the forest. — J. Russell 

 Smith in Countrv Gentleman. 



Canada 's Timber Needed 



London. — There is at present a 

 shortage of 400,000 cottages in Eng- 

 land. Besides this shortage, there 

 are old and unsanitary areas that 

 ought to be cleared away. The 

 building of these new cottages with 

 a view to providing discharged sol- 

 diers with work after the war and 

 removing a cause of emigration is 

 the subject of a general scheme de- 

 vised by the National Housing and 

 Town Planning Council. It also 

 forms another instance of the way 

 the war has dissipated England's in- 

 difference to her internal problems. 



One of the main causes of com- 

 plaint among lease-hold farmers and 

 farm hands is the poor housing. An- 

 cient cottages with the lower floor 

 flush with the ground and the roof 

 thatched with straw may be pictur- 

 esque, but they are damp and a main 

 cause of the rheumatism from which 

 the country people suffer so much. 

 Of the 400.000 cottages, about 120,- 

 000 are needed in the rural districts. 

 Families are now cramped into 

 small quarters, living in old and 

 mouldy homes or new and cheaply 

 built affairs thot have no modern 

 ideas or improvements. 



The provision of homesteads with 

 small holdings and the intensive cul- 

 tivation of the soil, reforesting, the 

 reclamation of wastes, the settle- 

 ment of disabled soldiers and sailors 

 on the soil and town planning 

 schemes involving new main roads, 

 playgrounds and open spaces, are a 

 part of the programme of the hous- 

 ing council. 



