National.

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.

The United States Government is about to begin a series of investigations into the causes of accidents in American coal mines in the hope of reducing the present mortality, and by Aug. I will have a complete experimental station in operation on the grounds of the arsenal in Pittsburg, Pa. The results of the investigations will be published for the benefit of the mine bureaus of the various coal-producing States, the mine owners, and the miners themselves. Simple instructions will be issued from time to time to the miners in half a dozen different languages.

The New Jersey Legislature has authorized a commission with a ten-thousand-dollar fund, to investigate the causes of dependency and criminality, and make inquiry for the purpose of ascertaining to what extent excessive use of alcoholic drinks or narcotics or other factors are contributory causes.

Under an enactment of the last General Assembly, "bucket shops" in Connecticut ended their business June 30. The penalty for violation of the law is a fine of from five hundred to one thousand dollars and imprisonment of not more than one year.

It is estimated by temperance authorities that during 1908 not less than two hundred saloons a week will be closed. Allowing an average of thirty feet front for each saloon, that means fifty-nine and one-third miles of saloons to be closed in the year.

William H. Taft, Republican nominee for President, resigned his portfolio of Secretary of War June 30 and was succeeded by Luke E. Wright, Governor General of the Philippine Islands.

The Republican State Convention in the State of Washington recently declared for local option, and the Democratic convention favored absolute prohibition.

A bill to prevent the drinking of intoxicating liquors on passenger trains in Louisiana has passed both the Louisiana Senate and House.

It will require seventy thousand people to take the thirteenth census in 1910, and it will cost about fourteen million dollars to take it.

International.

A deputation of the Russian Douma has explained to Premier Stolypin their objections to the proposed metallurgical trust and have asked the Premier to refuse to sanction this or similar syndicates until Parliament has brought the corporation laws of Russia up to date. The statement is signed by one hundred and ten deputies, representing all political parties. It declares that the proposed metallurgical trust is masquerading in the guise of an ordinary stock company, and is seeking to evade the law, with monopolistic ends in view. The signers ask the Government to introduce in Parliament as speedily as possible legislation providing for complete reform of the existing corporation laws and the regulation of industrial combinations.

The new triple turbine steamer Tenyo Maru of the Japanese Steamship Line arrived at San Francisco last week on her maiden voyage across the Pacific. She sailed from Yokohama on June 16 and from Honolulu on June 24. Her unofficial time from Honolulu is four days and twenty-one hours, which beats all previous records between that port and San Francisco, averaging about eighteen knots an hour for the entire distance. She is 575 feet long, 63 feet beam, and 48 feet 8 inches deep. Her displacement is 21,000 tons, with a cargo capacity of 8,000 tons. Her cabins and steerage will accommodate 1,129 passengers.

The Wright Brothers, the aeronauts of Dayton, O., have signed a contract with Lazare Weiller, who is acting for a syndicate, which offers the Wrights one hundred thousand dollars for their patents, provided, first, that the aeroplane, with two persons on board, flies thirty-one miles in an enclosed circuit, and second, that it repeats this performance within eight days in the presence of a committee. If another aeroplane accomplishes this same feat within four months of the time the Wrights make their successful flight the contract is to become void.

The Russian Douma has voted a subsidy of three million dollars, to be distributed over a period of eleven years, for the establishment of a semiweekly service of the volunteer fleet between Vladivostock and Tsuruga, Japan, and weekly service between Vladivostock and Shanghai. The new steamers will be convertible into fast cruisers in time of war. It has also adopted the Finance Minister's bill authorizing an internal loan of one hundred million dollars to cover the anticipated budget deficit.

A Lisbon, Portugal, mass mecting, organized by the Republicans and presided over by the Republican leader, has passed resolutions demanding a vigorous investigation of the advances of money, said to be eleven million dollars, to the royal family, and the misuse of public funds during the regime of the late King.

The Russian Douma has adopted the bill introduced by the Minister of War authorizing the expenditure of forty-six million dollars for the completion of army supplies and material. The appropriation will be devoted almost exclusively to the military needs of Transbaikalia, the construction of fortifications at Vladivostock, and capacious barracks at several centers, with the best available artillery equipment.

The combined British naval maneuvers, in which the Channel, Atlantic, and Home Fleets will be united under the supreme command of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, will take place July 1-22 in the North Sea. About three hundred vessels of all classes will be assembled in the maneuvers.

Count Zeppelin's airship on June 29 remained in the air for six hours and three-quarters, attaining an average speed of 34½ miles an hour throughout. In a later trial the airship remained in the air twelve hours and sailed over a large part of Switzerland.

The Venezuelan Government has withdrawn its suit against the former receiver of the New York and Bermudez Asphalt Company, to compel him to render an accounting of his four years' administration of the property and has approved his accounts.

The returns of the British treasury of the total revenue of the United Kingdom for the first quarter of the financial year show a decrease of $11,686,940 as compared with the corresponding period of 1907.

Industrial and Commercial.

The output of pins in the United States for 1907 reached the vast total of 133,000,000 gross, or nineteen billion pins. If the average length of pins be assumed to be an inch, America has produced in a single year, at a cost of about seven hundred thousand dollars, 320,000 miles of pins—enough, if laid end to end, to go around the world thirteen times, or to make a one hundred-strand cable between New York and Liverpool.

It has been found that a good quality of cheap paper may be made from dried cotton plant stalks. The commercialization of cotton stalks, says the chief of the Bureau of Entomology, will solve the boll weevil problem, while furnishing an additional profit to the planter. The stalks will be gathered by the planters and converted into pulp and the breeding-places of the boll weevils destroyed.