150 HOW TO GET A FAEM, 



garded as the only instance in which our Govern 

 ment has extended aid to promote the drainage of 

 any description of lands. While with us the neglect 

 of this important interest has been the rule, in Eng 

 land the practice has been directly the reverse. For 

 a long series of years, the efforts of English land 

 lords have been directed to the reclamation of waste 

 lands, moors, heaths, and lowlands. In 1797, a 

 committee of the House of Commons estimated the 

 area of such lands as had been brought under in- 

 closure from 1700 to that date, at about 4,000,000 

 acres. The subsequent increase was relatively much 

 greater, as there are statistics to show that from 

 1800 to 1820, as many as 3,000,000 acres more were 

 brought under tillage. It is held that this rapid 

 addition was caused by the stimulant of high prices 

 for all agricultural products growing out of the 

 wars of that period. 



Since 1820, it is said that the reclamation of waste 

 lands in England has not been pushed so vigorously, 

 but that the effort has been to increase the acreable 

 product of land, rather than to enlarge the area. 

 Hence the enthusiasm touching artificial fertilizers 

 and underdraining, both looking to a larger expend 

 iture of capital and labor on an acre. Government 

 has shared in this enthusiasm by loaning to English 

 farmers some $60,000,000 to enable them to under- 

 drain their lands. It is among the remarkable facts 

 of this munificent loan, that the lender has sustained 

 no loss from the borrowers, and that no land has 

 been underdrained without being signally benefited. 

 In numberless instances its productive capacity has 



