October 8, 1914] 



NATURE 



161 



tion of heath-land, which has of late years been pro- 

 ceeding apace in Germany. In this category we may 

 include all land which owes its infertility to the coarse 

 grade and low water-retaining power of the particles 

 of which the soil is composed, the soil being at the 

 same time as a rule devoid of carbonate of lime, and 

 covered in consequence with heather and similar calci- 

 fuge plants. In England there exist extensive tracts 

 of uncultivated land of this character in close proximity 

 to the considerable populations, but the process of 

 reclaiming such land for agriculture seems to have 

 come to an abrupt conclusion somewhere about 1850, 

 when the developing industries of the country began 

 to offer so much greater returns for capital than agri- 

 culture. That land of the kind can be cultivated with 

 success is evident from the mere fact that everywhere 

 prosperous farms may be seen bordering the wastes, 

 possessing soils that are essentially identical with those 

 of the wastes. These were brought under cultivation 

 when labour was cheaper, often without calculation of 

 the cost because the work was done piecemeal at times 

 when the men would otherwise have been idle. Were 

 any strict account to be framed, the reclamation prob- 

 ably did not pay its way for many years, and it has 

 only become possible again because of modern ad- 

 vances in science and machinery. As examples of the 

 type of land, I may instance the Bagshot Sands on 

 which, in north Surrey, in Berkshire and Hampshire, 

 and again in its southern development in the New 

 Forest, lie so many thousands of acres of uncultivated 

 heath. No systematic reclamation has taken place, 

 but everywhere farms have been carved out on this 

 formation, often by the industry of squatters, and 

 within reach of London the vast supplies of town 

 manure which used to be available have converted 

 some of it into fertile land. The crystallisation of 

 common rights into charters for public playgrounds, 

 its growing appreciation for residential purposes, will 

 now always stand in the way of the utilisation of most 

 of the Bagshot Sands for agriculture, but further 

 afield there are many areas of similar character. 



The Lower Greensand is perhaps equally discounted 

 by its residential value, but on the Tertiaries of Dorset, 

 the Crag and Glacial Sands of SufTolk and Norfolk — 

 the brak, the Bunter Beds of the midlands, lie many 

 expanses of waste that are convertible into farming 

 land, just as Lincoln Heath and much of the beauti- 

 fully farmed land of Cheshire have been gained for 

 agriculture within the past century. Equally possible 

 is an attack upon the sandy areas, warrens or links, 

 behind the sand-dunes on many parts of the English 

 and especially the Welsh coasts ; not all of them are 

 wanted for golf, and many can be fitted for market- 

 gardening. Of old the only way of dealing with such 

 land was merely to clear it, burn the rubbish, and 

 start upon the ordinary routine of cultivation, but for 

 a long time on such a system the crops will scarcely 

 pay their wav from year to year, and the permanent 

 deficiencies of the soil in lime and mineral salts 

 remain unrepaired. In Cheshire the enormous value 

 of marl and bones in such a connection was early 

 recognised; it has been the later discovery of the 

 potash salts that renders reclamation a commercial 

 proposition to-day. The method that is now followed 

 is to begin by clearing the land of shrubs, burning off 

 the roughest of the vegetation, and turning over a 

 shallow layer in the summer, leaving the heathery sod 

 to the killing and disintegrating action of sun and 

 frost until the following spring. The manure is then 

 put on — lime or ground chalk or marl as before, basic 

 slag and kainit, and the sod is worked down to a 

 rough seed-bed on which lupins are sown, to be 

 ploughed in when they reach their flowering stage. 

 The growth of the lupins makes the land, they supply 

 humus to bind the sand together and retain moisture, 



NO. 2345, VOL. 94] 



they draw nitrogen from the atmosphere, and with 

 the phosphoric acid and potash form a complete 

 manure for succeeding crops. Sometimes a second 

 crop of lupins is ploughed in, but usually the land is 

 put immediately to an ordinary rotation of rye, oats, 

 potatoes, and clover. When the heath-land is divided 

 among small tenants in an unreclaimed stafe rropping 

 often begins without the lupins, the necessary nitrogen 

 being imported by nitrate of soda, but for years the 

 land shows inferior results. Only the tenant can 

 rarely afford to lose the year the lupin crop involves, 

 and so great is the demand for land in Germany that 

 the State finds its preferable to let the tenant reclaim 

 than to reclaim for him, and charge him as rent the 

 cost of the more thorough process. 



And now as to the finance of the operation : 

 the reclaiming down to the ploughing in of 

 the lupin crop costs from 5^. to 6Z. an acre, 

 the bare heath costs from 5^. to 7/. an acre, 

 the reclaimed land after a few years' cultivation would 

 sell at 20L to 3oi. an acre. Meantime the State has 

 probably made a free grant for drainage, looking to 

 get some interest back in increased taxation ; the local 

 authority has also made roads for which the increased 

 rating due to a new agricultural community must be 

 the only return. It is a long-sighted policy which will 

 only find its full justification after many years when 

 the loans have all been paid off and the State has 

 gained a well-established addition to its agricultural 

 land and its productive population. In comparing 

 English with German conditions there are certain 

 differences to be taken into account — in the first place 

 the work of reclamation will be dearer in England 

 because of the higher price of labour, then the land 

 will not be so valuable when won because the higher 

 scale of prices for agricultural products enhances the 

 price of land in Germany. Next, I doubt, in view of 

 the great industrial demand for men in England, if 

 we have the men available who will bring to the land 

 the skill and power of drudger\' that I saw being put 

 into these German holdings of thirty to forty acres in 

 their earlier years of low productivity. Moreover, in 

 Germany these heaths are generally bordered by 

 forests, in which the smallholder gets occupation for 

 part of the year while his wife and children keep the 

 farm going. For this, if for no other reason, afforesta- 

 tion and land reclamation and settlement should go 

 on together. But, despite these drawbacks, I am still 

 of opinion that the reclamation of such heath-lands 

 is a sound commercial venture in England, either for 

 a landowner who is thinking of a future rather than 

 of a present return on his capital, or for the State or 

 other public body, wherever the waste land can be 

 acquired for less' than 5/. an acre. The capitalised 

 value of its present rental rarely approaches that 

 figure, but the barrenest heath is apt to develop the 

 potentialities of a gold-mine when purchase by the 

 State comes in question. The map of England is so 

 written over in detail with boundaries and rights and 

 prescriptions that the path of the would-be^ reclaimer, 

 who must work on a large scale if he is to work 

 cheaply, can only be slow and devious. 



There are other possibilities of winning agri- 

 cultural land even in England, from the slob 

 land and estuaries, from the clays nowadays 

 too heav}^ for cultivation; but the problems 

 they present are rather those of engineering 

 than of agricultural science. What I should like in 

 conclusion once more to emphasise is, that the re- 

 clamation of heath and peat-land of which I have 

 been speaking — reclamation that in the past could 

 only be imperfectly effected at a great and possibly 

 unremunerative expense of human labour — has now 

 become feasible through the applications of science — 

 the knowledge of the functions of fertilisers, rhc in- 



