Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1876 — Forests and Fire-Proof Homes. [ARTICLE]

Forests and Fire-Proof Homes.

The following paper by. George May Powell, Chairman of the Forest Committee, was recently read before the American Institute, in New York: As suggested in our recent forest mo morial to Congress, “it is what is saved, not what is made, which constitutes natiorikl aswell as individual wealth.” Increase of fire-proof buildings, especially for residences for the people, will save much of the forest wealth now being worse than wasted, in building tindertraps and calling them homes. The human element of the forest question is likewise one of the deepest interest. Little feet grow weary early in the morning, the bloom of youth pales on the cheeks of young men and maidens, as they march to the dead line; and gray hairs dearer to us than our own fives have passed from our sight all too soon, because of malarial, pulmonary and other evils, which God’s green trees were intended to prevent or modify. Death, also, in homes turned to smoke and ashes, is another fearful count in the mortuary record of our country, in consequence of improper use of materials in their erection. If the statistics of those who have suffered from this cause were gathered, they would present ghaßtly and heartrending totals. Scarcely a week passes in which the press does not present us results of this class of fire record which makes the flesh to creep. Whole families or the choicest treasures of them, 'broiled and roasted and charred, or scarred and maimed for life, because the houses where they lived (and to build which the woodlands have been unduly depleted) have been unwisely constructed. The remedy is in fire-proof houses which will arrest both the holocausts and the waste of our arboreal wealth. That these fire-proofs are practicable as shelter for the masses of the people is proved by the almost absolute universality in which we find them in Oriental countries. We do not know of more than one house in the citv of Jerusalem, or any other Eastern city we have visited in Northern Africa, or in Syria, which would not be difficult or impossible to consume. That one, a modern wooden cottage, is on the high ground inside and west of the Damascus Gate. As far as we remember, all the rest—walls, floors and roofs—are masonry. These houses cost less there •than wooden ones. The same is true, to a great extent, of the popular architecture of the houses of the people in Europe at the present time. This point is substantiated by awell-knownstatementof Hiram Powers, the sculptor, to the effect that when there was a fire in an Italian city, they were in no hurry to put it out, knowing how completely it cari be controlled and how slowly it would spread. They would in most cases cost little more than wooden ones here, and the difference in expense of insurance would be good interest on that difference of cost, to say nothing of the feeling of relief from anxiety from the fact of security. By the use of some such material as terracotta, the French tell r or some other composite, cottages and villas and churches, as well as State buildings, can be erected over the heads of the people now and here. Those minor buildings can be so constructed as not only to be cheap and tasteful, but elegant. They are also healthier in respect to non-liability to sudden changes, to extremes of heat, cold and moisture. By reference to a British work on architecture it will also .he seen that ealia fragillie, (L), a wood which we can grow in unbounded abundance, is both non-flammable' and adapted to such portions of these structures as absolutely require wood. Treatment of curtains and some other house fixtures with a Solution of alum is another point worthy of consideration by way «of fire prevention. The minds or the masses need disabusing of the idea that insurance money makes good ‘tne losses from fire; the practical truth being that insurance is only a powerful suction pump to draw the losses of the few from the pockets of thß many. The loss from fire being, as a question of political economy, an absolute logs of just so much National wealth. There are over thirty-one ad a half millions of dollars of annual Insured losses by fire in the Empire State alone paid by the insurance companies, leaving uninsured losses out of the count

To whiten flannel made yellow by age, dissolve one and a half pounds of white soap in fifty pounds soft. water, and *l*° two-thirds of an ounce spirits of ammonia. Immerse the flannel, stir well around for a short time, and wash in pure water. When black or navy blue lmens are washed, soap should not be used. Take, instead, two potatoes grated into tepid soft water (after having them washed agd peeled), into which a teaapoonful of ammonia has been put. Wash the linens in this,-and rinse them in cold blue water. They will need no starch, and should be dried and Ironed on the wrong side. An infusion of hay will keep the natural color in buff linens, and an infusion of bran will do the same for Drown linens and prints.— Exchange.