CHAPTER IX 



Reclamation of Waste Land 



One point in our long catalogue of errors, upon which 

 our self-examination, provoked by the war, has thrown a 

 particularly glaring light, laying bare what now appears 

 a distinctly reprehensible sin of omission, is our quite inexcus- 

 able neglect of cultivable or plantable land, which has long 

 been allowed to He unprofitably idle, and stiU continues so. 

 Providence has meted out to us our land, in proportion to 

 our population, with a somewhat sparing hand. We have 

 not overmuch room to turn round in and our proportion of 

 acreage to inhabitants is small. WTien we talk of planting 

 the humble population belonging to rural England back on 

 their native land, in order that they may there enjoy the 

 " beatitude " sung by Horace, to relieve the jostling throng 

 of industrial population in towns and to produce in larger 

 quantity the food required for our people, the cry at once 

 goes up that there is no land to spare from what is wanted 

 for the larger farmers, that to cut up large farms, in order 

 to create small holdings, would simply be robbing farmer 

 Peter to pay small-holder Paul. And yet there are, as is 

 reported, something like twenty- one million acres lying 

 idle within easy reach, almost under our very noses, a very 

 tidy slice out of which is fully capable of being sown with 

 com, or else planted with trees, providing for us directly 

 or indirectly what is needed, in sheaves or in beeves ; and, 

 once more, the timber that we want when an emergency 

 like that of the past few years comes upon us. There are, 

 apart from a considerable number of desert patches scattered 

 sporadically over the surface, wide stretches of bog and 



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