Our national government sees and our state governments are coming to see this calamity that threatens us. If the land owners-the farmers-of this country can be made to see and realize this danger, all will be well.

There are nearly one hundred million acres of rough, non-agricultural land in this country that has been stripped of all its valuable timber, and is virtually abandoned. The only thought given it is to get what little pasturage grows on it. If intelligent care were given this natural wood land, it can be made to produce many times as much value in the timber it will grow as is now obtained from its scant pasturage value.

The men who own this kind of land must be made to see the great loss to themselves, of a policy that does not utilize this land to its highest value. This loss is not only to the owners of this land, but affects the whole nation as well, and will, in the near future, have to be checked by suitable legislation, as has already been done by the wisest of the European countries.

Government and state records all show that wherever "farm forestry" (that is, the raising of suitable, quick growing trees on agricultural land) has been tried in an intelligent manner, it has invariably paid the men who engaged in it better, much better, than ordinary farming.

A recent writer in the "Review of Reviews," after summing up our timber situation, declares "that the only thing that will save this country from a national calamity is the planting of ten acres of trees on every unforested, plantable quarter of a section of land."

After several years' study of practical forest tree planting, and of the timber supply in relation to the future lumber industry, I will affirm that if every man owning one hundred and sixty acres of land would plant ten acres of it to suitable forest trees, this ten acres will prove the most profitable part of the farm.

A treeless country is prey to all the forces of nature; the burning summer sun, with the withering hot blasts playing over a tree stripped plain; the biting winter winds seeking out both man and beast, with nothing to stay their fury; the floods, wreaking their vengeance unrestrained, leaving destruc tion and ruin in their path.

One-half of the beauty of the world is lost when the trees are gone. Those men who grow stately groves and forests to beautify the landscape, affording protection to man and beast, will be public benefactors in the truest sense.

We who own land owe a duty to the future not to strip the earth bare of trees. Rather shall we plant broad acres to forests that will remain after us, noble monuments to our memory, more lasting than marble shaft or block of stone.

"FIELD LABORERS."

BY SUSIE D. MICHEY.

[Paper read at the Farmers' Institute held at Greenwich, December 11, 1907.]

How small a farm was the garden of Eden, where our first ancestors began, as compared with our whole earth, which we now might, consider one great farm or garden?

It is said that man cultivates about one-tenth the land surface of the earth, while nine-tenths is covered by forests and pasture land. So we see

that man cultivates one-tenth of the earth while nature does nine-tenths alone, and helps man with his one-tenth.

Man will say we do more than that, for what laborers do more than we? Are we more insignificant than nature's laborers, the worm, beetle, bird, bee and small animals?

There are vast pasture lands here, extensive forests there; there are woods, jungles and heaths, but they have all been planted. The soil was prepared in the first instance and has been renewed since by laborers who are not less truly deserving of the name than the plowman, though they do not work with his implements.

Our deserts are disappearing and the earth is growing to be one mass of green vegetation through our small, yet countless, laborers. They work so quietly with their machinery that they are unnoticed.

If we make an invoice of man's farming, we will find that he grows about two hundred and fifty different species of plants and two hundred partly domesticated animals; but on the great natural farm, things are done on a grander scale. Nature grows not less than one hundred and forty thousand species of plants, and the different species of live stock would amount to some millions. It has taken ages of ceaseless work to make soil upon our bare rocks. The first vegetation that would grow upon our rocks were the lichens. This decay of vegetable matter year after year would make a little better soil which would germinate the seed of some higher plant, until our earth is now covered by a mass of vegetation.

Mr. Ball says: "Deserts are altogether a thing of the past, only in places of extreme rarity of rain." So our soil has been increased and fertilized by nature's laborers. They have been at work by the millions, reclaiming the barren spots and fitting them for man, who sows the best seed and reaps the reward of the unseen, unnoticed and often abused laborers who are incessantly at work for him.

If nature's plowman, the worm, should desert the farmer, he would find that he could only do the rough part of the work. The frost also breaks up the ground and aids the work of the harrow.

At last the ground is fitted, the seed is sown, and now surely the farmer will need only the sun and rain and he will be able to reap a good crop. Can he fight the great army of slugs, grubs and insects which seem to be ever on the alert? Will the birds and bees be of any benefit to him then? The honest man will answer, yes, and will not begrudge a few grains of wheat to our birds. And so the fruit farmer and the truckman owe their success to the humble bee, who carries the pollen from flower to flower.

God, in his great wisdom, has planned everything perfectly. No soil is fertile with mineral matter alone, but must contain at least one-half organic matter, either vegetable or animal, and then it would not be rich enough tɔ grow corn, but would grow weeds or wiry grass. The organic matter is thoroughly mixed and pulverized by the earth worm. The darker our soil, the more organic matter it contains, which has been plowed and worked by our earth worm.

The earth worm is an animal endowed with wonderful power of adaptation to adverse circumstances. Bodily injury does not kill it. Eight times in succession one worm was beheaded, and each time grew a new head; another was cut into fourteen pieces and thirteen became perfect worms, while only one died. The worm has no teeth, but a mouth with two lips, by which it is enabled to grasp any decayed body, flowers or leaves and drag them into his burrow, where they are made extremely fine. By burrowing and loosening

he soil, it makes it easier for all roots to grow down and for the rain to saturate the soil. The earth without worms would soon become cold, hard bound, void of fermentation and unfertile. The worm will eat anything eatable and will feed daintily upon half-decayed flowers, leaves or their own dead comrades.

An experiment has been tried of putting two worms in a large dish of sand and strewing leaves on the top. In a short time they had converted the top layer into a vegetable mold four inches deep. One naturalist claims that in a warm climate, where they have plenty of rainfall, the amount of soil thrown up by the earth worm would be from fourteen to eighteen tons per acre. So the farmer who decides to give a certain field rest, by letting the grass or clover go back on the ground, will find the earth worm a great aid to him in enriching the soil.

Now we give our attention and praise to a smaller animal than the wormthe ant. It seems that the ant works in places where it is not suitable for the worm. The hill-building ants choose rock to build upon and gradually cover the surface with soil. Grass and other seeds soon take possession of the soil; thus the soil is bound to the rock by various roots, and vegetation covers waste ground. They are not contented to stay in one place, but next year will begin their labors in another barren or rocky spot; thus their work goes on year after year. The white ant abounds in central Africa. It lives underground, and when obliged to come out for food, it builds a tunnel of mud within which it always remains. The termite, which resembles the white ant, builds tunnels, but lives upon dead wood. In some districts of Africa there are millions of trees covered with tubes or tunnels, their value being that they bury the dead wood and bring up a great amount of soil, exposing it to the air. The nests, or mounds, are often of huge size, being from ten to seventeen feet high, while the excavations beneath are many yards deep. The mounds are composed of many tunnels and chambers, and their walls are so strong that they will bear the weight of a man on horseback; but at last, with all its strength, it must give way to the tropical rains, which continue for two or three months. The soil is returned to the earth with the admixure of animal matter. Fresh soil is continually exposed to the air and a way made for the rain to penetrate the underlying rock and carry on the decaying process.

Burrowing animals have been especially useful to the soil by adding organic and mineral matter to the soil; their burrows help to drain the soil. In the western part of North America we find a large number of ground squirrels. They burrow in the ground, lay up their store of food in the soil, living together in large villages. Another little burrowing animal we find in our fields and yards is the mole. Although found in greater numbers in England, we have had some experience with them in Ohio. He has a good many enemies because he uproots the crops, exposing and eating their roots. In the spring he eats a few blades of corn. Thus we see it does some damage, but the benefit rendered by the mole generally far exceeds the loss. The mole is a great plowman, overturning the soil and making it lighter. It devours all kinds of small animals; in fact, it lives almost entirely upon animal food, such as grubs, worms, insects, also mice, lizards, frogs and dead birds. A large quantity of vegetable matter is carried into the earth for their nests, greatly benefiting and enriching the soil.

These thousands and millions of little field laborers, always burrowing, always feeding and making nests, their help year after year to Mother Earth is not small!

Another very useful worker, which might be called nature's health officer, is the beetle. They bury the filth, dead bodies of animals and insects.

We see that in many ways our laborers keep our earth clean and a fit place for man.

These are only a few of our field laborers, and we find that man must look for the assistance of nature's field laborers, and must acknowledge that our soil has been made inch by inch by them.

"THE PLEASURES AND ADVANTAGES OF FARM LIFE."

BY MRS. A. H. SCHEID, HURON, OHIO.

[Paper read at the Farmers' Institute held at Milan, Erie county, February 4, 1908.]

Why so many of our farmers are unwilling to consider themselves every whit the equal of the man of the city seems very strange, but I presume we have so often been met with ridicule on the part of our city brethren, that we have allowed ourselves to slip into the background. I fear it is often our own fault, rather than those whom we allow to taunt us, that this condition of affairs should exist.

Today the city man of education and broad mental capabilities does not hesitate to voice the assertion that the farmer's position of the present time is far more to be envied than the inhabitant of the city, be he capitalist or the man of more moderate means. For though we have our complaints, and they are not imaginary ones either, especially during seed time and harvest, when work is in abundance and the laborers are few, yet nowhere in the scientific or mechanical world has there been more rapid strides made than in agriculture, and we are in a measure more capable of solving this problem, to a certain extent at least.

The enterprising farmer of today makes haste to acquire all the new, labor-saving machinery, which go to make the life of the farmer more independent of the long retinue of laborers heretofore needed. We realize, of course, that these require the investment of considerable capital, but when one considers the wages asked by the farm laborer of today, the man who invests in a manure-spreader, gang-plow, hay-loader and side delivery rake, certainly has the wages of one man saved to go toward the payment of these implements, and with a little forethought and shelter after one has finished using these tools for the season, they will last for some years. And here allow me to say that too many farmers imagine they are economizing by saving the money they could erect a building with, and so expensive farm machinery is allowed to wear and rust away in some convenient fence corner, where sometimes the weeds are allowed to grow over and around them, and the owner little realizes what a heavy penalty he is yearly paying for his carelessness.

While, on the other hand, the farmer of enterprise and thrift is not satisfied or contented to be merely the owner of a farm, yet he bends every energy to make it an attractive and cheerful home for his family, that even the expensive, modern, up-to-date, city home fails to compare with. Yes, I do not hesitate to reiterate the fact that though a home may be palatial in its architecture, grand in its surroundings, a city home still has the grime, the dust, smoke, the restraints and the false pretenses of the cities, while we, on the other hand, in spite of labor and hard times, can always enjoy the clean, bright environments and pure associations of our farm life.

A score or more years back and there was little else than drudgery for the young people on the farm. To be sure, there are such homes even now to be found, but we are thankful to say they are diminishing rapidly, and the farmer whose complaint that his large family of sons and daughters have all deserted the old home for the vicissitudes and temptations of city life, have not very far to look for a palpable reason therefor.

We all know there are country homes so wretched, so devoid of all comforts, that it causes one to shudder, and yet the surroundings are not always to blame. The chances for happiness are to be found everywhere, but too often they are sinfully trampled upon. And then, often, a father does not stop to think that the ambition and energies that he boasts of in himself are impreg nated into his sons as well, and though he may not stint them in pocket money, he fails to give them the right training to hold them on the farm.

I assure you it is far more profitable to give your boys a plat of ground, and even devote a little of your own time thereon, or interest them in the stock by giving them a lamb or calf or colt, and if you encourage them to sum up their assets, at the end of the season, you will be surprised how much more interest they will take, not only in their own values, but yours as well. Be not like so many who allow it to be the boy's colt, but claim it as the father's horse, for this will dampen his energies and lower you in your boy's estimation. He will feel that there is a want of truthfulness in your nature that alone could tempt a father to take so mean an advanage of his boy. The boy of mettle and grit will not be treated thus, longer than he finds it necessary, but will seek another field of labor.

Frequently our city friends look for happiness in the size of the house or the style of the architecture or the richness of the furnishings, never thinking that the true happiness of a country home is the contentment, freedom and love which permeate the household.

For must we not all admit that the glory of our home circle is the more manifest in the dead of winter, when the whirl and buzz of farm activity comes to a standstill, and the farmer, somewhat relieved from the pressing duties and responsibilities of the farm, is content to rest from his labors and enjoy the close companionship of his family?

What pleasure for the farmer and his wife to view the well-filled mows and bins, the active, well-fed horses in their stalls, the sleek-coated cattle grazing in the meadows, the sheep feeding in the wood lot, and the pantries and cellars overflowing with good things to eat-all in readiness for the long winter rest.

Can one imagine a pleasanter picture than the farmer of today, enjoying his daily mail, doing his business over the telephone, his home fitted up with all the modern conveniences that the city can boast of, as far as heat, water supply and lighting plant can make it so? His children are happy and cheerful, for their duties, though not strenuous, are such as to give them no time for discontent and frivolous thoughts that so frequently are to be found in our city children, due to dissipation and want of necessary exercise.

Too often have I noticed the tendency of many of our matrons on the farm to allow their daughters to think that work which mother considers her daily task is entirely too far beneath them to perform. This idea, if allowed to grow, will so corrupt our households that our sons will find it necessary to battle through life with a "help eat" instead of a helpmeet, whose only qualification will be a college certificate based against actual knowledge of what a wife's duties consist. In regard to this, I hope you will not infer that I am opposed to giving our daughters the best eduation it is in our power to give,