ON RECLAIMING AND COLONISING THE BOGS AND WASTES

OF IRELAND.

1. A new and easy system of draining and reclaiming the Bogs and Marshes of Ireland. By R. MONTEATH.

2. Observations on the benefits arising from the cultivation of Poor Soils. By W. JACOB, Esq. F. R. S.

3. Colonies at home, or means of providing for the Poor Population of Ireland, by the cultivation of the Soil. By W. ALLEN, F. R. S.

4. An account of the Poor Colonies of the Benevolent Society of Holland. By a Member of the Highland Society of Scotland. 5. De la Colonie de Frederiks-Oord. Par le BARON DE KEVER

BERG.

6. Proceedings of the Society for the Improvement of Ireland. 7. A Practical Treatise on the Rural Affairs of Ireland, with Remarks on the reclaiming of Bogs and Wastes. By JOSEPH LAMBERT, Esq.

THE attention of all the speculative agriculturists of Ireland has been, of late, almost wholly directed to the reclaiming and improving of the bogs and waste lands of this country. Although our population be not greater than the country can support, nor perhaps within many millions of the number which it could maintain in comfort and plenty, yet it is certain that a prodigious number are at present suffering under the extremity of indigence, without any apparent means of relief, unless some new demand for profitable labour be devised. Ireland is as yet essentially an agricultural country, and so it ought at present to continue. Great Britain and she have no separate interests, and while the trade of England and of the world is overdone, it would be wasteful and ridiculous excess to add to that which is already unprofitable from its superabundance. It is quite enough for the English people, with all their coal and iron, to gain nothing more by being cunning artificers of cotton and wool for foreign markets, than to buy and sell, and live by the loss; it would be sheer folly to attempt to introduce into Ireland an extensive foreign manufacture, at a time when that

game is overplayed already, by a country of which we are a part, and which is possessed of so great natural and artificial advantages, over every other in the world. We have not the least ambition to see Ireland resemble the manufacturing districts of England, for we think her character, her innocence, and her happiness, would suffer by the change. The emigration scheme seems in but middling odour with any party now, and, notwithstanding the 'pregnant evils which the economists, who adopt a mode of reasoning opposite to that propounded by Lord Bacon, foresee from the cultivation of poor and unproductive soils, that is the measure very generally proposed to be resorted to at present. The evidence adduced before the Select Committee on the Employment of the Poor, the Emigration Committee, and other Committees of the House of Commons on Irish Affairs, established an exceedingly strong case in favour of the practicability and expediency of expending labour on the drainage and improvement of bogs and wastes in Ireland, with a sure prospect of ultimate gain. Mr Nimmo, the Government engineer, a man practically conversant with all the details of improving unprofitable land, and who had actually reclaimed a piece of ground for Lord Palmerston, stated that nearly the whole of the waste land of Ireland is reclaimable; that the expense of reclaiming it would in no case exceed, and, in general, would be considerably under L. 10 per acre; and that every acre, when so reclaimed, would produce to the owner a rent of 20s. per acre, or 10 per cent. upon the capital expended upon improvement, besides making an estate. adds his personal conviction of the feasability of such an immense improvement, in these striking terms: "Upon the whole, I am so perfectly convinced of the practicability of converting the whole of the bogs I have surveyed into arable land, and that at an expense which need hardly ever exceed the gross value of one year's crop produced from them, that I declare myself willing, for a reasonable consideration, to undertake the drainage of any given piece of considerable extent, and the formation of its roads, for the sum of one guinea per acre, which is little more than seven years' purchase of the rent it would then afford."

He

The Quarterly Review for July 1828, in discussing the evils

of Ireland, and their remedies, presses this topic most forcibly on the attention of the landed proprietors of Ireland. To those who allege that no profitable demand can be created for the labour of the neglected and unemployed population, the reviewer recommends an attentive perusal of the evidence before the House; and, instead of the much vaunted panacea of emigration, he recommends, that, in whatever district of the island the population has, from any cause, become redundant, the excess may be employed in reclaiming and cultivating the bogs and wastes of their native country, while any such bogs and wastes remain. "The benefit," he adds, "which the labourer himself would derive from such a measure, would be at least as great as any that could be expected from his deportation to the colonies, and the advantages which would accrue from it to the proprietors of the Irish soil would be incalculably greater; the unoccupied labourers, who now impoverish and weaken the community, would thus be rendered the source of wealth and strength; idleness would give place to industry, poverty and insubordination to abundance and tranquil contentment, and the productive powers of this highly fertile island would be gradually and fully developed; so ample are the resources which Ireland presents for the profitable employment of a rapidly increasing population, that ages must elapse before they are entirely exhausted; to do full justice to the natural resources of her soil merely (to say nothing at present of her fisheries, manufactures, &c.) would require a vast addition to her present population. The supposition that, while one-third of the whole surface of that island, although capable of cultivation, is in a state of nature, and while, moreover, the land already occupied might, by the application of additional labour, be rendered incalculably more productive than it is at present, the removal of any portion of the existing labourers would benefit the Irish landholders, is surely a wild delusion. That the owners and occupiers of this imperfectly cultivated soil, that the proprietors of these reclaimable, but uncultivated wastes, should conceive that any serious and permanent benefit could acerue to them from the removal of the only instruments by which their tillage might be improved, and their wastes rendered productive, appears to us all but incredible." * "It is a fact proved beyond the

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possibility of being disputed or cavilled at, that a considerable proportion of the bogs of Ireland are capable of yielding a large remuneration for any conceivable capital which may be expended in reclaiming them. Are the landlords of Ireland all asleep? Or are they all expatriated? Can example make no impression upon them? Is it conceivable that they should continue to overlook so wide a field for the employment of their unoccupied countrymen, and so obvious and inexhaustible a source of wealth to themselves ?"

With all this, however, it must be confessed, that the reclaiming of bog or mountain has rarely proved a profitable speculation to the individual who has embarked in it. Success, if attainable, can only be the result of patient perseverance, combined with practical knowledge, and not of ephemeral excitement, or crude speculation. Neither must too much be expected at once from the experiment, nor the efforts for its success be hastily abandoned. One can scarcely forbear a smile, on reading, in the minutes of the evidence before the House of Commons, of those unconscionable people who, to prove that reclaimed land soon returns to its original state, "took two crops of potatoes, and two of oats, from the new ground, sowed it with coarse grass-seed, mowed it till it no longer yielded meadow, and then complained that it was throwing money away to improve bog."

In order to carry on so tedious and difficult a process with effect, a wider field of operation, a larger number of subordinate agents, and consequently a greater expenditure of capital, are requisite, than can usually be devoted to the task by any single proprietor or occupier, especially in Ireland. The Society for the Improvement of Ireland has suggested, and various writers on Irish affairs, in periodical works, have frequently and pressingly urged on the attention of the British Legislature, the propriety of its interference to facilitate the cultivation of waste lands as a fit and most desirable substitute for emigration.

A Society in Ireland, as I am informed, has recently gone the farther length of recommending to the public a specific plan, which they propose to carry into effect by means of private subscription. This Society recently appointed a committee to inquire into the feasability of colonising at home, adopting for

their model, it would seem, the poor colonies established during the last twelve years by The Benevolent Society of Holland. The. committee appears to have confined itself to little more than an examination of the evidence before the House of Commons, on the subject of bogs and wastes in Ireland, parts of which are embodied in their Report, and the conclusions they arrive at are these:

Extract from the Report of the Committee.

"It appears in evidence that there are, of reclaimable bog, in Ireland, two millions of Irish acres, of a soil suited to the production of grain. The mountain districts, at present comparatively unproductive, are capable of high improvement; they consist of about one and a half millions of acres; of which it appears that about one-half is suitable for agriculture, the remainder for much improved pasturage, for rearing or dairy purposes, and the entire eminently suitable for planting, much of the worst of it having been old forest land.

"In Ireland there are few persons who, either in manufactures or agriculture, conduct their operations on such a scale as to admit of much surplus for accumulation of capital. The manufacture which flourishes-the linen-is spread abroad amongst a population which, at the same time, cultivates the soil for their subsistence; and though such a manufacture may be more conducive to health and morals in the manufacturer, it is incompatible with large savings. In like manner, in agriculture, the tendency, from various causes, to subdivision of farms, and the general practice of throwing the expense of buildings and repairs on the tenant, countervail the accumulation of profit in the hands of the farmer, and the application of it to beneficial enterprise in agriculture. In considering the causes which discourage industry in Ireland, it is impossible to overlook the lamentable circumstance, almost peculiar to this country, of the non-residence of a great proportion of the proprietors; and especially of that portion which could most contribute, by their rank, their wealth, and their moral influence, to operate beneficially on the habits and comforts of the lower classes.

"The Reports of the Commissioners of Bogs, &c. suggest the subjects for agricultural exertions, and the mode of execution

VOL. II. NO. VII.

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