drill and the rest to a trade, with attendance on two evenings weekly at classes for more advanced technical instruction. Although the public should have to bear the expense, or most of it, of the drill and technical instruction, it is not impossible that arrangements might be made with firms to take the lads into their workshops as half to three-quarter timers during their last two years of service. In this way the youths would be able partly to defray the expense of their training, and be led to cherish a spirit of independence. Even if the whole burden of the support of the conscript army should rest on the shoulders of the public Treasury, it would not be great compared with the sums expended directly and indirectly by Continental Governments on their armies; while the training thus given to the young proletaire, who, without it, will certainly in numerous cases become a life-long pest to society, would send into the industrial ranks journeymen who would be none the less efficient workmen and citizens for their naval and military drill, and would provide a class from which the Government could draw, at need, ready-made soldiers, with a thorough training in the use of tools that would be of inestimable service in a campaign."

"Mr Henry George, when he visited some of the

high tenements in the poor localities of Edinburgh, was scandalised at the fact that they had no ' elevators.' The dens of the proletariat lack elevators in another sense than Mr George's. Medical men say that the infection of fevers will cling for years to the walls of an hospital. The infection of degradation clings to the very stone and lime of the proletariat lairs. Massed together as these poor people are in narrow, dirty streets and filthy stairs, malodorous with the ingrained physical and moral pollutions of a century or more, how can they become pure in body or mind? They must be removed from their plague-stricken abodes and planted in wholesome contiguity with country life. It is one of the most imperative demands of the century to restore a closer relationship between town and country, both in the interest of town populations and their industries and in that of agriculture. Farmers and their dependants will never thrive on the old methods. Intensive culture

has become a necessity. But it requires the proximity of a market. Three or four densely crowded cities far distant from each other, and the intervening spaces sparsely peopled by a few farmers and cottars, is a state of things as ruinous to farmers nowadays as it is detrimental to the physical and

moral health of the bulk of the nation. On the other hand, that the culture of the soil can be made a remunerative occupation when a market is within convenient reach has been amply proved by experience."

"There is a double movement going on at present in agriculture, the two sides of which present a striking contrast to each other. In the Midland districts of England, for example, whole tracts of country, which once in autumn used to be covered with golden crops, are now laid down in pasture. Every year, as imported grain goes down in price, the farmer finds it to be his interest to sow less wheat; and with the change in the mode of farming there is simultaneously taking place a migration of our rural population into the great centres of industry. But in the immediate vicinity of these great centres, and especially around Paris and London, the reverse of this is taking place. The market gardeners, without much guidance apparently from scientific men, and mainly by applying common-sense and extraordinary industry to meet. the difficulties of their situation, are, in restricted areas, achieving results which Liebig never dreamed of, and which, in matter-of-fact statements, read more like a fairy tale than sober reality. A certain M.

Ponce, whose experience has enabled him to write a book on the culture maraîchère, manages so well his marais of 21% acres, on which and a steamengine for watering purposes he has laid out a capital of £1136, that, with the labour of eight persons, himself included, he makes a gross income estimated at £800, of which £100 goes for rent and taxes, and £570 for working expenses. Conclusive proof of the success of the Paris market gardeners is afforded by the fact that they pay rent, on the average, of £32 per acre, and that in the neighbourhood of Paris 5000 persons are employed in the cultivation of 2125 acres; and they are able, besides supplying the whole of Paris with vegetables, to send a large surplus to London. M. Lemaître, at Asnières, from half an acre of soil which he has covered with a glass roof, and heats at the cost of one ton of coal a day, crops for ten months of the year from 1000 to 1200 big bundles of asparagus daily, which bring, on the average, 71⁄2d. to 8d. each in the market; a yield which, according to the Revue Horticole, could not be got from less than sixty acres in the open air. Thus by skill and industry the productiveness of the soil is increased a hundred and twenty-fold.

"The secret of such marvellous success is in pro

viding a nutritive and porous soil, which industry, even when unaided by science, has proved that it can do on the most barren basis, and in keeping the plants in a warm soil and atmosphere during the early stages of their growth. How this is done may be seen in the market gardens around London, which are dotted over with glass bells protecting the young plants. By such devices the market gardener takes from six to twelve crops a year from the same piece of ground. Those who, from practical experience of the system, are best able to judge, maintain that, by the use of methods of culture the success of which has been proved, the departments of the Seine and Seine et Oise, covering an area of 3250 square miles, could supply their 3,500,000 inhabitants with all the animal and vegetable food they require. It is not the market gardeners only who have scored a notable success. Instances are given of farmers who, by improved methods, are able to feed one, two, and even four head of horned cattle per acre; whereas until recent years in this country three acres have been needed for the keep of one. From another quarter some rays of comfort come. It has been thought to be hopeless for home growers to maintain their ground against the overwhelming supplies from the prolific soil of the West. But Schäffle, one of