694 
THE TKOPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [April 1, 1901. 
her husband's deatli Messrs. Nelson promise a 
pension of 10s a week until death or re-niarriai^e. 
Widows who iiave purchased a quarter of a pound 
of tea instead of half a pound receive 5-i a week. 
Whatever its legal aspect, the scheme is novel 
and ingenious. According to Messrs. Nel.son and 
Co., although they only started in .January 1898 
their yearly turnover has reached £2^(),0'M, and 
their pension-roll £35,000 per annum. The widin's' 
cheques are posted eveiy Friday from the head 
otRces at Louth, in Lincolnshire, last Friday, 
when an Express representative was invited to 
see them despatched, in pioof that there was no 
deception, the total was 1,832, and a dozen male 
and female clerks toiled against time to catch 
the post. 
" How do we make our profit?" said the manag- 
er. "By simple arithmetic. Of every hundred 
women who become regular customers only an 
average of IJ become widows. The remaining 
982 pay for the pensions of their less fortunate 
sisters and at the same time provide for them- 
selves and their families, should they in turn lose 
the bread-winner. 
" It pays us better to push oir tea in this 
way than to spend mammoth sums in ad- 
vertising. 
" No, we don't sell cheap tea. We sell the best 
Indian." 
"We claim that this is not only a good 
business scheme, but a step as well towards the 
solution of the Old Age Pension Question." — Daily 
Express, Feb. 26. 

THE WORLD'S TIMBER SUPPLY. 
At the Society of Arts on Weduesda^y Dr W Schlich 
read a paper on the "Outlook for the World's Timber 
Supply." Sir W T Thiseltou-Djer was in the chair. 
The first part of the paper was occupied with statis- 
tical details on the export and impoit of timbei- in the 
various countries of the world. As regards Europe 
Dr Schlich reached the conclusion that the present 
deficiency of 2,620,000 tons was sure to increase 
because the European sources of supply were not likely 
to meet the additonal 600 OOC' required annually ; 
personally he would not be surpi-ised, if ten 3'ear3 heuce 
the deficiency amounted to three or four times the 
present quantity. Of the importing non-European 
countries taken altogether there was no doubt the net 
imports would increase as time went on. Of the ex- 
porting countries, the regions round the Oaribbean 
Sea exported mahogany and other furniture woods, 
but they also imported so much lumber that their net 
exports were only 13,000 tons a year. The West Coast 
of Africa exported various hardwoods but they were 
so expensive that they hardly affected the question. 
British India could not do more than send some teak 
and furniture woods. In Asiatic Russia, even suppos- 
ing there was a surplus of production for export, the 
cost of transport would be practically prohibitive. The 
Timbers of Central Africa were not ot the sort requir- 
ed in Europe in large quantities, apart from cost of 
transport, and in South America matters were in a 
similar position. It would not be possible, he felt sure, 
for the United States to meet for any length of time 
{be increased demand which they had supplied for the 
last few years. Their present annual production, 
estimated at 75 million tons, waa exceeded by the 
present annual consumption by 33 per cent, and 
this meant that they consumed annually not only 
the legitimate growth or increment but also a 
portion of their capital unless decided steps were taken 
Bt once to start thorough protection and systematic 
management on selected areas, or, as they might be 
called, reserved State forests. There should be no 
difficulty in permanently reserving 100 million acres, 
^acl i£ balf the muml reveune-^J£700,000— derivedi 
from Canadian forests were devoted to that purpose, 
.substaciial progress conld at once be made to secure 
not only the present, but an increased, output for any 
length of time, leading ultimately to a revenue tenfold, 
or more, the present amount and securing a perma- 
nent supply of coniferous and other limber for the 
world. In the second part of his paper Dr Schlich 
drew attention to a few les-ions that might be learned 
as regards the British Empire as a w/hole and these 
islands in particular. With ail the forest wealth of 
the colonies, we imported into the Empire timber 
valued at nearly 18 millions sterling every year, and the 
sum lately had .isen at the rate of £771,000 annually. 
Surely the time had come for a more vigorous forest 
policy on sensible lines throughout the Empire. 
Systematic forest management should be introduced, 
more particularly into Canada and Australia, and, 
above all, let the self-governing colonies consider a 
little more seriously than hitherto the magnificent 
example set by India. But we should begin by putting 
our own house in order. The imports of timber into 
the United Kingdom in 1899 were valued at 25 millions 
sterling, and of late years they had increased at the 
rate of 332,000 tons, £919,001), annually. Eighty-seven 
per cent of the total consisted of pine aud fir, 
the sources of which were specially exposed 
to exhaustion, and where were we to obtain the 
nine or ten million tons of coniferous timber we 
required when the couatries round the Baltic, and 
peihaps also Canada, had begun to fail us ? Yet we 
had sufficient, and more, surplus hind at home to pro- 
duce all this timber without putting a single acre out 
of cultivation. There were 12 million acres of wasteland 
aud 13 million acres of mountain and heath land from 
which to choose the necessary six or seven millions, 
and surely £25,000,000 going out of the country every 
year was money enough to take some trouble about. 
Sir W T Thiselton-Dyek, in opening the short 
discussion which follower!, pointed out that of coal and 
timber — the two sources for the sustentation of human 
comfort and indu.stry supplied by solar activity — the 
former was limited in amoant and there was no hope 
that it could be reproduced, but in the ease of the 
latter nature had a regenerative power, so that, except 
when the perversity of mankind interfered, one tree 
when felled was succeeded by another. But there was 
no question more h trd to drive into the head of the 
administrator or politician than that of afforestation ; he 
was always anxious to reserve it for his successor. 
Still, a forest service hai been e tablished in India, 
which was an example to civilisation, and more re- 
cently others of our dependencies had been induced to 
do something for their forests. There was, however, no 
good in being unreasonable in the matter. We were 
told that we paid 25 millions sterling a year for imported 
timber, but he personally was not so deeply impressed 
by this fact as the lecturer seamed to be. We were a 
business nation, and as such bought in the cheapest 
markets and he did not think we could be made to grow 
our own timber merely as a matter of sentiment. He 
doubted if people in this country would engage in 
forestry unless they Ciuld be convinced of a return of 
4 per cent, on their money, and he could not see the 
way to that at present, — London Times, iVIarch Ist. 
Potatoes in China.— The. Chinese are just 
taking to the cultivation of the Potato. Though 
this most indispensable vegetable has been culti- 
vated in England for the last two and a half 
centuries, it is believed that the Spanish intro- 
duced it from Peru in the beginning of the 
sixteenth century, but it was not till two hundred 
years later that it came into general use in 
Germany and France, and even then popular pre- 
judice was so much against it in Prussia, where 
It was credited with causing leprosy and fevers, 
that Frederick the Great had to resort to legisla- 
tiioa to jiromote its use,— -JAc Gardener, (Marcb.j 
