366 
Utilisation of Waste Substances and 
ing about their buildings, Sic. ; and it is not of course possible 
that they should be able even to guess at its value till after 
the collection. 
Such material is not all " worthless ruhhisli" as is often stated, 
but much of it is valuable for many useful purposes on the Estate or 
Farm — even the veritable rubbish is capable of being utilised. — And 
it is at this stage that a mistake may possibly be made, as to 
which a word of caution may be useful. Looking at the col- 
lected materials, one is exceedingly apt to pronounce the whole 
as simply a " heap of rubbish," and to doom it accordingly to 
summary destruction. Some surprise may be expressed the 
while, how so much of this " kind of stuff" could have been 
collected and kept up year after year. A closer investigation 
and a little more thought will, however, show that amidst much 
that veritable rubbish there is also much that is more or less 
valuable, and worth putting carefully aside for practical use. 
I have known materials required in certain constructions to 
be sent for in the nearest town, and of course paid for at the 
market-price, when the same materials, almost if not practically 
quite as good, have been lying littering about the farms in some 
place or another. After having collected what is called the " rub- 
bish about the place " — found here, there, and everywhere, as on 
many an ill-regulated, disorderly-kept farm, will be the case — let 
it be, by one of the most careful men, looked quietly over. The 
best of the " rubbish," of whatever kind, as bricks, timber, slates, 
(Sec, should be carted out and laid aside, each in its respective 
place. If the " accumulating period " of " rubbish deposits " has 
extended over several years, and more especially if during it 
some " building work," as it is generally termed, has been 
going on, the aggregage of material will be very considerable in 
amount. And assuredly in not a few instances will the 
proprietor or tenant be surprised to see how much of it may 
be used in one odd job or another. It is not, of course, here 
maintained that on every farm the materials exist for such a 
varied collection as hinted at above. But in nearly all, where 
" order " has been neglected for long, and things allowed to lie 
as they gather or get accumulated, when order is at last esta- 
blished, a much larger, more varied, and much more generally 
useful collection of material will be obtained than will by the 
great majority be thought it all likely to exist. Of course, the 
larger the place the more varied and extensive will be the work 
done on it, and, by consequence, the greater will be the accu- 
mulation of materials. " Order " being once established, the 
hitherto careless farmer will find it to be a good thing ; better 
still if " order " be thereafter rigidly maintained, and the 
materials, as they are left on the ground, taken at once to the 
