ITEMS OF INTEREST July 11, 1908 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Japan furnishes an example of what can be done in growing wood on small plots. That country contains twenty-one million woodlots, about three-fourths of which belong to private persons and one-fourth to communes. The average size of these plots is less than nine-tenths of an acre. They usually occupy the steepest, roughest, poorest ground. In this way land is put to use which would otherwise go to waste, and if unwooded would lose its soil by the wash of the dashing rains. The yearly yield of lumber from these woodlots is about eighty-eight feet, board measure, per acre, and three-fourths of a cord of firewood. In many cases the yield is much higher. More than half a billion trees are planted yearly to replace what is cut for lumber and fuel.

The disbursements of the United States Treasury for the fiscal year ended June 30 have aggregated $659,000,000, or $80,000,000 more than for 1907, and $4,000,000 more than for any other year since 1865, not excepting the Spanish War period. The Panama Canal during the year will have cost the Government $38,000,000, and the work in connection with the reclamation of the public lands will have cost about $13,000,000. The deficiency in the postal revenues for the present year will probably reach $13,500,000, as against $7,500,000 for 1907. This is the largest postal deficiency in the history of the Government, except in 1905, when it reached nearly $15,000,000.

By proclamation of the President a series of long but very narrow reservations of public land have been made along the boundary line between the United States and Canada. The reservation is only thirty feet wide and the length is limited only by the amount of unappropriated public land along the bound ary line. The reason for the establishment of this reserve is that the customs and immigration laws of the United States can be better enforced and the public welfare better advanced when the Federal Government has complete control of the use and occupation of lands abutting on international boundary lines.

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