10 UTILITY OF FORESTS TO A NATION 



of modem life. Such areas are also the best in which 

 to place sanatoria. It is possible that the medical 

 faculty win turn a greater attention to this point 

 in the future. 



The catchment areas of the water supplies of our 

 great cities and towns provide another instance of 

 our ignorance of the utihty of woods. Not only do 

 the trees maintain a larger supply of water in the 

 reservoir, a point perhaps of less importance in our 

 climate (though one of the chief in a hot dry climate), 

 but they exert an incalculable influence on the purity 

 of the water. We have been slow, extraordinarily 

 slow, in realizing the great importance of planting 

 up our catchment areas. Manchester was the first 

 to show the way in this respect, but most of the 

 other great cities of the country have not got beyond 

 the " matter is under consideration " stage. Of 

 course many of the towns do not own the land 

 forming the catchment areas of their reservoirs. 

 These may be whoUy or partly agricultural land. In 

 this case, year after year manure full of bacterio- 

 logical death for the human race is diunped down 

 in heaps and subsequently distributed over fields 

 in the immediate vicinity of the reservoir from which 

 the inhabitants of a great town draw the whole of 

 their water supply ! 



Finally, woods have a beauty aU their own, 

 which makes its own appeal to a large proportion of 

 the human race. This aspect of the forest cannot be 

 without some beneficial effects on the population 

 of a country. 



