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XXVII. — The Improvement of Waste Lands connected with Mines. 

 By William Little. 



Prize Essay. 



The improvement of waste lands wherever situated is a subject 

 of great importance to us, seeing- tliat we are so dependant on 

 other countries for the food of our people, but the improvement 

 of such lands in a mining district, Avhich frequently forms one of 

 the great centres of our population, cannot easily be over- 

 estimated, as in such localities a great demand exists for every 

 article of rural produce. 



Waste lands are very commonly taken as signifying lands in 

 a state of nature, heath or moorland, but I presume that the term 

 as given in the subject of this essay is intended to embrace, not 

 only moorland, but more particularly portions of land cut up 

 and rendered waste by mining operations of any kind. The 

 reclamation or improvement of moorland around mines would 

 differ little, if at all, from the reclamation of such land in any 

 district other than a mining one, unless that the nearness to 

 limestone and coal, or similar advantages, gave the impetus and 

 the facility for the cheap application of lime or other manures. 

 But the greater area of the surface of our mineral fields is 

 already under the plough ; for if in the first instance a good 

 deal of mineral wealth was obtained from beneath a heath-clad 

 surface, as inining operations are carried out to any great extent, 

 the heather for the most part falls before the plough, unless the 

 situation on account of elevation and climate is unfavourable 

 for cultivation. A large portion, however, of the mineral fields 

 of Great Britain are favourably situated in these respects, but 

 from the working of the mines and the manufactures which they 

 give rise to, considerable portions of the surface in their imme- 

 diate vicinity are rendered waste, unoccupied, and unproductive. 



A brief sketch of a mining district will serve to show how the 

 surface is cut up, and no small portions of land rendered waste. 

 There are the pits, conspicuous by their tall chimneys, engine- 

 houses, and huge boilers ; the large unsightly pit-heaps ; the 

 working and the worked-out brickyards, with blast furnaces, 

 coke-ovens, and heaps of slag and other debris lying here and 

 there upon the surface. There is the network of railways or 

 waggonways and canals for the carriage of minerals, some of 

 them in use and others abandoned, crossing and re-crossing each 

 other, cutting up the fields in all forms, and frequently into small 

 irregular patches. There are also the straggling rows of almost 

 innumerable cottages for the miners, and clusters of villages, often 

 apparently built without any regard to comfort, order, or beauty. 



