32 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



the earth, that it may be rendered more fruitful, and serve the 

 purposes of life and happiness, than any of the triumphs of mil 

 itary glory, any of the bloody conquests of revenge and unbridled 

 ambition. These serve no other purpose than that of scattering 

 abroad agony and desolation ; glutting the most hateful passions 

 of a depraved nature ; and marking their progress, not by the 

 displays of genius and skill, and the brilliant and rich fruits of 

 civilization and humanity, but by laying waste the improvements 

 and refinements of science and art, and pouring out every where 

 a turbid flood of unmitigated wretchedness and death. 



In England, Ireland, and Scotland, vast amounts of peat land 

 have been subdued and redeemed, and, from being wholly waste 

 and unproductive, are converted into well-tilled and fruitful 

 fields. Thousands and tens of thousands of acres have been 

 recovered in England ; and, in Ireland, improvements of this 

 nature are in progress on a most extensive scale. The single 

 territory of Gleneaske, near Ballina, consisting almost wholly of 

 peat bog, and which was to me the object of a most interesting 

 visit, embraces about 3500 Irish acres, or upwards of 5600 Eng 

 lish acres.* This, a public-spirited company, called the Waste 

 Land Improvement Company, and possessing an ample capital, 

 have undertaken to reclaim and cultivate, and have already made 

 a considerable progress. There is, indeed, in Ireland, ample 

 scope for this species of improvement, as the area of peat bog is 

 estimated at no less than 2,833,000 acres, almost the whole of 

 which is deemed capable of being redeemed, and brought into 

 productive cultivation. 



I know nothing in the United States resembling the bog land 

 of Ireland and England. Much of it, indeed, is on a level sur 

 face, but extensive tracts of bog are elevated into hills of consid 

 erable height, composed wholly of peat, and that often, as I 

 have seen, to the depth of six, and even ten feet on the 

 summit. 



Peat, properly so called, as my readers well know, is a de 

 posit of vegetable matter, composed, in general, of a particular 

 kind of plants, which have decayed under water, and containing 

 much of the element which is called tannin, which preserves it 

 in the state in which it is found, often impregnated with iron, or 



An Irish is to an English acre as 121 to 196. 



