338 TRANSACTIONS OP SECTION K. 



Act of 1847, which makes it penal to lead sewage into or -wantonly to defile the 

 reservoirs and the streams feeding them. This protection is inadequate, as any- 

 thing that happens to be on the gathering ground may be carried down into the 

 reservoir in time of floods or heavy rains. When houses or farms exist on the 

 gathering ground, serious impurities, such as the excreta from a typhoid case 

 or the contents of a cesspool on a farm steading, may be swept into the reservoir. 

 It has been found difficult in practice to compel farmers living near a stream in 

 a watershed to re-arrange their middens, cow-houses, &c. The diversion of 

 sewage from farms by drains is scarcely an adequate protection. 



To prevent pollution of the water supply from these gathering grovmds the 

 entire area over which rain is collected ought to be owned by the authority 

 responsible for the waterworks, and should be managed solely in the interest of 

 the water consumers. 



There is one means by which water catchment areas can be effectually guaixled 

 against pollution and at the same time be put to profitable use, and that is 

 afforestation. In considering the advisability of afforesting a watershed, it need 

 not be assumed that the entire area should be covered with trees. Questions of 

 aspect, depth and nature of soil, shelter from wind or exposure, must be taken 

 into account in determining where and what to plant. It is probable that the 

 proportion of any gathering ground that can be planted with advantage will be 

 found to vary from 10 to 70 per cent, of the total. On most catchment areas 

 which attain over 1000 feet elevation a combination of grazing and forestry must 

 be resorted to. Only the lower zone and the sites with favourable soil are suitable 

 for planting. 



The main difficulty of afforestation on a large scale in England lies in the 

 necessity for tlie acquisition of the land by some coi'poration or State authority, 

 who would be bound to carry out the work on the only lines that would ensure 

 success, namely, the planting to be spread over a term of years, to be uninter- 

 rupted, and to be carried out in 'large blocks, in no case of less than 500 acres each. 

 It will be difficult to induce private landowners to undertake, out of their 

 diminished incomes, afforestation schemes on the large and continuous scale that 

 is essential to success. 



In the case of water catchment areas belonging to corporations, the question 

 of continuous ownership is solved ; and the agreement entered into on August 18, 

 1914, by the Liverpool Corporation and the Development Commissioners is a 

 workable financial scheme that can be adopted generally. The Treasury provides 

 the money necessary for planting, while the Corporation gives tTie land and pays 

 the recurring annual expenses of management and taxes. In this partnership 

 the produce of the forest will be ultimately divided between the two parties in 

 the proportion of the capital invested by each. In this way the profit or loss 

 accruing from the plantation will be fairly shared between the State and the 

 Corporation. Afforestation should be imposed as a necessary duty on all the 

 water authorities who obtain their supply from gathering grounds; in other words, 

 each corporation ought to be compelled to carry out a planting scheme as soon 

 as the Government shall issue a loan for the initial expenses of planting. 



The Foresti-y Reconstruction Committee in their Eeport say : ' We consider 

 it should be an invariable rule that on catchment areas all land which will produce 

 a cropi of marketable timber should be afforested. Many of the corporations are 

 still engaged in meeting the capital outlay which their water-supply systems 

 necessitated, and for that reason are unwilling to place further burdens on the 

 present for the benefit of future generations.' They recommend that the local 

 authorities be assisted by grants or by a scheme of proceeds-sharing. Mr. 

 Joseph Parry, long the engineer in charge of the Liverpool Waterworks, considers 

 the proceeds-sharing scheme to be less favourable than the Liverpool agreement 

 referred to above, and to be surrounded by conditions which he would not advise 

 any local authority to accept. In his opinion the Forest Authority should be 

 allowed to take over the whole business and pay the local authority a fair rent 

 for the use of the land. 



Only in a few cases has the work of afforesting these gathering grounds been 

 taken up seriously. Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham have planted 

 on a considerable scale. The other municipalities have done very little. 



The enormous extent of these gathering grounds has not hitherto been. 



