Replanting the Black Country

174 THE HOSPITAL AND HEALTH REVIEW April REPLANTING THE BLACK COUNTRY. BY A RESIDENT OBSERVER. npHAT portion of Staffordshire and Worcester- and cinder banks. Spoil lias ceased to be tipped sliire wliioli is known throughout the upon it, and nature is busy clothing it with grasses kingdom as the Black Country, bids fair in the future and other humble vegetation. There is no denying to belie its title. For generations it has been re- that these banks are hideous and their ugliness is garded as an area of huge chimneys that by night no doubt more striking to strangers than to those that and day belch forth smoke and flame, a country of have been born and bred among them. But even ugliness, a desolate waste of pit and foundry rubbish those who have been accustomed to them from child- heaps, the atmosphere of which, polluted by dense hood, and therefore notice them least, are very black smoke from a thousand stacks, is unfit to be quick to see and to appreciate, when on a holiday A Typical Pit Bank. breathed by man or beast. Many writers-?Dickens, trip, the refreshing beauty of wood and pasture in perhaps, the most memorable of them?have pictured more favoured districts. it as an inferno where men stripped to the waist Planting the Wastes. worked at huge furnaces till they could work no longer. Such is the reputation of the Black Country. But the Black Country is not fated to be for ever a desert. Efforts are being made in many quarters Thirty Thousand Acres of Ruin. to restore some portion of their old beauty and use- In past ages the Black Country, in common with fulness to districts made desolate by the hand of other parts of the kingdom, was to a large extent man. It is not suggested that, these neighbourhoods and it is since man commenced to forest, only utilise will ever become health resorts, but at least they can the coal under its and to erect for surface, furnaces be so transformed as to be pleasing once again to the of iron and steel and factories of making every the eye. Inspired by the great success which has description that blackness lias come upon it. In- attended the efforts at re-beautifying the similar dustrial activity has not only made the atmosphere country around Charleroi and other iron-making wake to once murky, but has brought in its ruin the and coal-mining spots in Belgium, and at the same beautiful until there are some countryside to-day time providing new timber for their use, interested acres of land used for the mere 30,000 heaping of parties in this area set out by means of tree planting rubbish from the collieries and blast furnaces. For to see what could be done here. Public support miles at a stretch nothing is to be seen but pit mounds was soon forthcoming and in 1903 the Midland Re' April THE HOSPITAL AND HEALTH REVIEW 175 afforesting Association was formed in Birmingham improving the liealtli of a district. To the activities having as its object the replanting of waste grounds. of the Re-afforesting Association, then, some of the Since that date trees have been set in plantations credit is due for the betterment of the health of the in many parts of the district and the Association has districts in which plantings have been carried out. been busy giving expert advice on planting to private The improvement is no doubt also due in some landowners who wished to improve their land, to measure to the increasing use of power or producer the education authorities who have encouraged the gas for with its adoption is disappearing the bulk of establishing of plantations by school-children, and the Black Country smoke. Even now much of it to the local authorities who liave spent large sums is preventable, and the Association is continually of money in turning pit mounds into parks and appealing to managers of industrial concerns to recreation grounds. It was recognised that by assist in reducing the volume of smoke. The best improving the surroundings of the iron and steel ground for re-afforesting in Staffordshire is the blast- workers and their children their health would be furnace slag mound because of the iron in the earth improved and undoubtedly the health of the Black left in the great cinders out of which the pig iron Country has been considerably ameliorated. The has been smelted ; these mounds the Association atmosphere is not so impure as it was and it tends obtains permission to level down and plant. The to become purer every year. waste mounds lying around the pit tops are com- posed of underground waste from the coal mines, Purifying the Air. " such as bats," &c., and are less valuable for the pur- of to The presence trees, besides being pleasant pose of the Association since coal waste is almost en- the and to tired eye, refreshing workers, undoubtedly tirely negative in life-giving properties for plant or improves the general health of the district. Forestry shrub life. The Association has been considerably and the destruction of forests improves climate, hampered since the war by lack of money and has been leads other evils to violent alterations of among unable to establish as many demonstration plantations temperature. Replanting has been shown to undo as it would have liked but it has continued to spread the harm wrought by the reckless felling of timber. its views broadcast and to advise landowners to Moreover, trees help to free the air from smoke, as plant, pointing out the most suitable trees for the a leaf from tree and rubbed between the picked any locality. In many instances their efforts have been will show. Woods are thus a natural fingers puri- rewarded, and private plantations have been suc- fying agent, and as such contribute directly toward cessfully established. Poplars at Moorcroft, Moxley. 176 THE HOSPITAL AND HEALTH REVIEW April The Creation of Sylvan Beauty. steep bank of slag supports thriving young willows, an and an elder is in the old stokehole. At So energetically has this work gone on that growing inspection of the district shows numerous plantations Wednesbury and Wolverhampton pit banks have of varying size, some already well wooded and a been reclaimed, and to-day there are two beauty to behold. The Association lias in some paries recovered from waste which bid fair to become places 20 years' growth of trees to show as a result spots of real beauty. Already they are the play- of its labours. An excellent example of the work grounds of hundreds of happy youngsters, who are and can be seen from the Great Western Railway. A watching the trees grow with themselves, new Isolation Hospital was started at Moorcroft, take a deep interest in the progress, of these infant some which have to near Moxley, close to Wolverhampton, some years shrubs, of they personally helped a keen ago. Attached to it was a waste of forty-two acres, plant. The Education Authority is taking most of it genuine pit mound, but part was a sand interest in the work of tree planting, and many school pit and part was the site of the well-known Waterloo plantations have been started, while avenues of Poplars Growing on Bare Shale. furnace. This the Association planted in 50 plots healthy young trees are to be seen in most districts by arrangement with the Joint Smallpox Hospital. planted by the children themselves, many in remem- To-day it is a beautiful colony, containing some 30 brance of fathers, brothers, or other relatives killed in species of trees. There has also been afforestation the Great War. at Reed's Wood, Walsall (where the trees are now Why Not Extend the Work ? well grown despite the close proximity of a chimney, Everywhere in the Black Country miniature discharging dense fumes), at the Birchills, Bentley, forests are springing up, and in all quarters trees are Pelsall, Wednesbury, West Bromwich, Wolver- growing and thriving upon pit waste, upon furnace hampton, Dudley, Pensnett, Kingswinford, Cradley, slag, and even upon the ash of burned out shale. and elsewhere. In most cases success is being Groves even of infant trees are better neighbours achieved in spite of atmospheric disadvantage. At than unsightly dust heaps, and each tree that is Dudley trees have grown with furnaces and forges planted becomes an incentive to plant more, The reeking all round them. At Corngreaves, near correct planting of the trees is a scientific matter, Cradley, though oaks and conifers are feeble, birches and great care is exercised in this particular. are growing luxuriantly on a pit tip, which is still Otherwise much useless expenditure might be being added to and is actually on fire at one end. A incurred. .

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