The vicinity of trees is not to be regarded as altogether evil, since they provide both shade in summer and a screen against winds in the winter. No disease comes from dampness because of their presence, and the worst thing which may be charged against a thick growth is that it keeps out the sun. Practically two points may, however, be urged against trees growing too close to a house. If near enough for leaves to drop on the roof, rain troughs and leaders become stopped up and cause trouble. A thick growth directly over a shingle roof allows organic matter to accumulate on the shingles, so that vegetation develops and the roof decays more rapidly than if exposed to sun and wind. Again, and it is no trivial matter, a house whose roof is easily accessible from trees is apt to become infested with squirrels, who get into the attic, run through the walls, and become a great nuisance. For these reasons, then, trees should be far enough away from the house to allow the sun to enter the windows freely and to keep away from the roof objectionable animals, large and small. _Space between houses._ It is a law or custom as ancient as the Romans that requires a proprietor to build his house so that the eaves should not overhang on the land of his neighbor. Our grandfathers, with the same idea, used to say that a man should be able to drive his team around his house on his own land. In our day it is highly desirable that a house should be built so as to leave as much land under control between the buildings and the lot line as possible. This, of course, does not apply to houses built on a farm of a hundred acres or more, but rather to the house in a small village where a few hundred people live closely together, under rural conditions. In such a village the water-supply usually comes from wells, and the wastes of the household are discharged into privies and cesspools. There is no law, unfortunately, which restricts the location of either of these two essential structures, and it is quite possible for a well, built within a few feet of a property line, to be ruined in quality by a cesspool, built later, on the other side of the line. It seems very unjust that, after the trouble and expense of building a well, a neighbor may render it worthless by the location of his cesspool, and yet, unless one can prove a direct underground connection between well and cesspool, no law is applicable to prevent the construction of the latter. Besides such a menace to health, there are other objections to the immediate vicinity of neighbors which can be avoided by a judicious interposition of space. For example, the writer listened through a long evening, recently, to a hearing before a City Commissioner of Health, where one householder and a crowd of witnesses complained of the noise made by a kicking horse in an adjacent stable. The one witness who was not disturbed by the noise, and who lived in the vicinity, was unexpectedly found to be deaf.