now largely cultivated
in California, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia. In
exchange, the cinchona tree abounds more now in India than in Peru, and
the cacao or cocoa tree has been planted by thousands upon the southern
slopes of the Himalayas and in Persia.

On the other hand, the bison and the prong-buck are almost extinct in the
west. But for the great national parks, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Niagara
and others, carefully guarded, the American deer, elk, and moose would
all likewise disappear. Forest-culture, however, is, by the pressure of
necessity, attracting, as it ought, a great deal of attention, under the
guidance of the government Agricultural Department.

* * * * *

It seems to work well, better than some expected, to have our national
Cabinet enlarged by the introduction to full rank in it of the three new
Secretaries, of Agriculture, Education, and Health. The importance of
the last named of these is universally acknowledged; as well as the
necessity for State Boards of Health in all the States.

* * * * *

How much sanitation has advanced during the last half century! Human
life now averages 50 years in the United States; rather more in
England, and nearly as much in France and Germany. By stringent
regulations for maintaining cleanliness of ships, wharves, and, indeed
of cities throughout, along with the abolition everywhere of the useless
and detestable antiquated personal quarantine, yellow fever has been
almost absolutely extinguished; only ten deaths from it occurring last
summer in Havana, one or two in Pensacola, and not one in New Orleans,
Memphis, Nashville, or any other city in the United States. Cholera,
likewise, through sanitary improvements, has disappeared from the world,
except a score or two of cases annually in the worst crowded villages
near the Ganges in India. What a grand triumph of medical art, also,
following Jenner's vaccination, and Pasteur's later investigations, is
the protection afforded against the dangers of scarlet fever, measles
and whooping-cough, by inoculation with a modified virus, appropriate to
each!

But, more than these, the waste of human life has been abridged by the
sweeping reform effected in regard to the abuse of alcohol. That was a
grand report made to Congress by the men and women of the "Alcohol
Commission" of 1910. It is said to have been principally written by the
chairwom