Xll INTRODUCTION. 



arrest the attention of all who feel an interest in their several 

 subjects. They describe the process by which the most for- 

 bidding surfaces of swamp and bog land, (leaving out the wide 

 fen-lands, like those of Lincoln and Cambridgeshires,) by a 

 moderate outlay of capital, may be turned into productive fields, 

 teeming with agricultural wealth a labor of the past century, 

 in which the landholders and farmers of England and Scot- 

 land have been engaged, and in the results of which their 

 agricultural products have been quadrupled, their population 

 trebled, and now enjoying more of the comforts and the 

 luxuries of life than at any former period. Not only is the 

 work of draining the lands of England and Scotland still in 

 active progress, both in their waste lands, and such as have 

 been hitherto considered arable, but the extensive swamp and 

 peat soils of Ireland, hitherto unproductive and valueless, save 

 for inconsiderable purposes of fuel, are rapidly becoming fertile 

 and productive under the improving process so graphically 

 described by the discriminating author of this book. The 

 simple work of drainage applied to .the waste lands of Ireland 

 will add untold millions to her productive wealth, and enable 

 that unfortunate country to sustain in full abundance a larger 

 popxilation than have existed upon her soil up to the present 

 time a . great share of them, in the direst penury, on the 

 potato alone. 



That equally beneficial results may be derived to the agri- 

 culture of the United States by draining, is evident. From 

 the experiments which have been made within a few years 

 past, it is ascertained that large tracts of hitherto worthless 



