happens to be within the boundary of a 'progressive' corporation. I have mentioned (p. 149) a friend who farms 200 acres of land (of which fifteen are grass) in the Thames Valley who pays more than 300_l._ a year in imperial and local taxes. This is due to the fact that he is under the heel of a 'progressive' board, which, finding it can borrow money at 3 per cent., is making full use of its powers and is fast converting a pretty village into something scarcely distinguishable from Houndsditch. We may now profitably turn to the consideration of Malaria, a disease which is undoubtedly connected with the soil and which has its habitat in the soil of certain places. Malaria requires for its development decaying organic matter, a high or moderately high temperature, and usually an excess of moisture. Tropical marshes are the elected seats of malaria, but not the exclusive seats, for it is known that certain rocks and arid plains, as well as the sandy estuaries of rivers, are liable to be malarious. The one thing which all, or almost all, malarious districts have in common is the fact that they are barren, or nearly so, uncultivated, and in many cases uncultivable. Malaria is rare in England, but once it was common, and we must not forget that James I. and Cromwell are both of them said to have been victims of this disease, which was rife in London in their time, especially in the Essex marshes and on the south side of the Thames, in Lambeth Marsh and the adjoining districts. An undrained country is uncultivable, and it has been found that drainage followed by cultivation has in this country enormously lessened the amount of malarious disease. Cultivation of land finishes the work begun by artificial drainage. The soil is dried and aërated by tillage, and the organic matter, when the humus is no longer drowned, is oxidised, and goes to nourish plants and trees, which effect an upward drainage no less important than the downward drainage, while the oxygen exhaled by the green leaves cannot but benefit the air of the locality. If we wish to keep clear of malaria in this country we must till the soil and so nourish the humus that its produce may be sufficiently valuable to bear the expense of any artificial drainage which it may be necessary to maintain. If the land of this country goes out of cultivation, as in places it seems to be doing, I see no reason why we or our successors should not witness a recrudescence of malarious disease in localities which are prone to develop it.