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the woodland-that it can never be cut off, but fire and the axe are playing such havoc with it at present that experts of the Bureau of Forestry predict that these great firs will, like the buffalo, become only a memory unless more stringent measures are taken. For this reason the Bureau of Forestry advocates new methods of felling the trees, such as using saws driven by steam power, which will cut the trunks close to the roots. A law is also being advocated compelling the timberman to bore into the base of the tree and not leave the decayed spots to guess work. Laws of some sort are certainly needed, for it is estimated by the forestry experts that of the total amount of timber cut for various purposes only sixty-five per cent is actually saved, and that the enormous proportion of thirty-five per cent of good lumber is left in the forests to waste.

The big stumps which are not cut up into shingles, however, are not all wasted. The people who are taking up the loggedoff lands are usually accustomed to get ting along in a small way and do not mind living in rather crowded quarters, so quite frequently one of the biggest will be kept for a temporary home. After the tree has been cut down, if the heart of the stump is rotten, exposure to the weather rapidly increases the decay, so that in a few years it may become merely a shell with the outside only a few inches in thickness. Then it is an easy matter to cut a hole in one end for a door and two or three small holes for windows, to clean out the inside, to cut

down an adjacent cedar and split it into shingles for a roof, and the house is ready for occupation when the stove, dishes and furniture are put in. A trunk fifteen feet in diameter will give a surprising amount of room. Some of them contain nearly one hundred and fifty square feet.

If the stump is so sound that it would be too big job to cut away the inside of it, the settler sometimes uses one end for a wall of his house, placing logs or planks against it and making a sort of roof lean-to, which is covered with shingles or boards. Then he nails some cleats against the sides of the stump for a stepladder and it is used for a variety of purposes. Children may take it for a playground. It is handy for the mother to spread out her clothes to dry in the sun where she has no other back yard. It also serves for a front porch, the family sitting on it in the summer evenings. After the farmer gets enough money ahead to build a larger and more comfortable home the old stump is generally preserved, for it can be used as a shed, sometimes a stable for the ponies, or as a storehouse.

The decayed wood is so rich and fertile that plants will readily grow in it, and some of the people who can find time to have a dooryard and a few flowers will leave one of the stumps after the land has been cleared, to be turned into a flower bed, sometimes planting vines which run up about the base and make a very pretty effect. So are covered some of the scars the lumbermen leave.

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Life-Saving and Swimming Hints

Written and Illustrated by Montague A.
Holbein, Famous Swimmer

For upwards of twenty-five years Mr. Holbein has created walking, cycling and swimming records every year with unfailing regularity; while his persistent swims across the English Channel from Dover to Calais, more than twenty-one miles, proclaim him, at forty-four years of age, one of the greatest "stayers" of his time. -Ed.

3DON'T know why I should state that every man and woman, boy and girl should know how to swim, and save life in the water besides. The thing is so obvious. And yet, what a strange state of affairs we see. Every year thousands of people lose their lives bathing in the sea or rowing and sailing in small boats on lake or river. And even winter brings its tragic tale of drowning because of skaters slipping through the ice.

I have no hesitation in saying that nearly all these sad events might be prevented if elementary instruction in swimming and life-saving were made compulsory in the public schools. And in the Old World at any rate a new era is dawning in this matter-especially in London, where the various school swimming associations with hundreds of thousands of adherents are teaching first of all "dry-land" swimming in the playgrounds, and then practical instruction. in specially erected swimming baths under competent instructors engaged by the school authorities.

And quite apart from the question of saving one's own life or that of another, swimming opens up a new and pleasurable exercise, as well as quenching forever the dread of deep water which seems to be on the bravest of us who cannot swim.

And as to those who can, I never could understand their utter exhaustion after going a few hundred yards until I investigated the questions of balance and breathing adopted by so many novices. You see in the event of a boat upsetting a good way out from land, it avails the

swimmer little if he can only negotiate half the distance before he becomes exhausted. I remember a press man in the tug following me on my last swim across the English Channel, calling out: "Why do you carry your head so low, Holbein ?"

"I don't carry my head," I replied; "I let the water do that."

The whole situation is here summed up. Watch any long-distance swimmer, and you will find that his mouth is well below the water at the beginning of each stroke, when the air is expelled, and a fresh breath taken as the stroke raises the mouth above the surface. In other words, the correct time to breathe is when the arms are fully extended in the stroke.

The swimmer who breathes "anyhow" will never go far, however powerful he be, as the strain of maintaining and propelling himself is too great, if his body be incorrectly balanced. The fact is swimming should not be a fatiguing exercise; certainly the strain should be as nothing compared with that of riding a bicycle up a stiffish hill.

Personally I have no great opinion of the sea-bathing idler who steps gingerly out of his tent, wades out up to his middle, bobs for a few minutes, and then goes miserably back with the secret conviction that sea-bathing is a delusion and a snare. All who have made the experiment agree that the most delightful and beneficial of sea baths is obtained from a boat pulled half a mile or more from shore. No swimmer should miss the delicious shock of the first dive-which by the way should never be over the side, but over the stern; the former is a dangerous as well as incorrect method.

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scribed, the swimmer will do well to practice a few useful water-feats as a variation from merely swimming until he grows tired. There is little excuse for swallowing water even in a fast stroke; this is merely a matter of correct breathing. I would also recommend practice with a life-buoy in the water. It affords great fun to a party of robust young swimmers and may one day or another prove vitally useful in some grave catastrophe far out at sea.

To a person ignorant of the correct way of getting into a buoy, this lifesaving contrivance is perhaps more dangerous than useful. When it is thrown into the water the temptation is to lift

The

yacht, "saved" wrong-end up; his head being submerged and his lower extremities maintained above the surface. correct thing is to grasp the two sides of the buoy with fingers of the hands uppermost, lower yourself right under it, so that its weight submerges your head for a moment. Then you will come up through the center. Draw your arms through, and you will find yourself comfortably supported as long as necessary, with your arms resting on the sides.

A much neater way to do it in one movement is to put both hands close together on the edge of the buoy nearest to you, and suddenly throw all the weight of the body upon it. This will.

OVER THE STERN IS THE ONLY SAFE AND EASY METHOD OF GETTING INTO A BOAT.

WHEN COMING UP ALL THAT IS NECESSARY IS TO DRAW ARMS THROUGH.

TAKE HOLD LIKE THIS AND DUCK So As To COME UP IN CENTER OF BUOY.

DON'T TRY TO GET INTO BUOY HEAD FIRST. IT IS

ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE.

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