“Having a plot of land 80-ft. frontage by 120-ft., I should be pleased if some reader would submit a plan and elevation-sketch of a detached house, something attractive, dainty, and _very arresting_.” The words I have italicised explain some of our present troubles. The desire of the builder and of his client, for the “very arresting” house causes many of the incongruous additions to our landscape. Something might be done, as the President of the R.I.B.A. has suggested, to supply the builder with stock designs of good character, adapted to the needs of each locality; for, as I have noted before, the use of copybooks in the eighteenth century produced houses which if sometimes dull were at least dignified and often charming. But a process of very slow conversion will be necessary before we can hope to rid the public of this desire for “very arresting” buildings. In the control of design would have to be included restrictions on colour and material _so far as is reasonable_, but it is quite impracticable nowadays to insist that a man building a house in a Yorkshire dale must employ the traditional stone walls and stone slates: it is doubtful if anybody will ever legally prevent him using the pink asbestos-cement tiles that clash so violently with the dull tones of the landscape. Similarly, it is idle to expect that a modern factory building should be erected to harmonise perfectly with rural surroundings: one can only ask that its designer may bear in mind the spirit of the place, and treat it as tenderly as circumstances permit. But we may reasonably press for further action in the abatement of factory smoke and domestic smoke, for that nuisance spreads forty or fifty miles away from industrial areas, and cities like Leicester--where smoke is hardly visible--are few and far between. The Coal Smoke Abatement Society has long worked towards this end, and its arguments are familiar to most people. Its supporters are convinced that smoky chimneys are wasteful as well as unhealthy and unpleasant. But it seems certain that we can eliminate a large part of our coal-smoke by utilising electric power far more extensively than we now do, by harnessing our rivers and by utilising all the waste water-power that is running from reservoirs to towns in aqueducts and pipes. It has been suggested lately that much of the ugliness of colliery districts might be mitigated by judicious planting of trees on pit-banks. But smoke is one factor that prevents this, for it blackens and stunts all vegetation. Then the recent coal-strike showed that in any such emergency gleaners would soon be at work on the banks, grubbing for coal among the tree-roots. Lastly, even if trees did grow in such inhospitable soil, there is some doubt whether they would be tenderly treated by those for whose benefit they were planted.