26 OCTOBER 1934, Page 16

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Unemployed Afforesters Further progress has been made with the scheme for employing 20,000 men (such is Mr. Baske Baker's ideal) in the work of afforesting our wasted acres, which amount to millions. Perhaps the most successful of all smallholding schemes has been the association, as in the Thetford area, of a holding of a few acres, on the edge of the new woods. The work of the men varies a good deal at different seasons, and they are able (like Jorrocks at dinner) to 4` fill up the chinks " with work on the holding, which consists more of animal than plant cultivation. In England as in similar places in Sweden, one may see the sight that Thoreau said he had never seen but desired to see : " Never met I a man engaged in the so simple operation of building his own house." The subject is worth the attention of the excellent institution of Grith Fyrd, which has especially encouraged the building of houses and sheds by else unemployed squatters.