RECLAMATION OF WASTE LAND. 415 



found us unprepared. There is the land ! There is the 

 need confessed ! But the means for connecting the two 

 are neglected. In his speech at Lincoln in July, 1916, 

 Lord Selborne gave vent to a longing for the same dicta- 

 torial powers which under the law passed in Prussia, speci- 

 fically for the war, the Prussian Minister of Agriculture 

 is supposed to possess for commandeering land for the 

 service of the nation and dictating to landowners and farmers 

 how to employ their land. The powers conferred do not 

 go altogether as far as Lord Selborne appeared to assume. 

 And practice does not in every case correspond to powers 

 given. The territory is so vast, and conditions vary so 

 greatly, that even the largest powers are often bound to 

 fail in view of opposing practical hindrances. You cannot 

 get blood out of a stone. You cannot force landowners 

 who have no monej^ few live stock, and but Httle labour 

 — and who could not under present circumstances, even if 

 they had the money, obtain the requisite fertihsers — grow 

 indefinite crops of wheat, rye, and potatoes. In its practical 

 application the law affects in the main small landowners in 

 the vicinity of populous centres, whose cultivation may be 

 most readily controlled. We are at present still wholly 

 without data to show the success of the measure. And as 

 regards powers of coercion, our Development Commission 

 is likely to be able to do more, at any rate specifically for 

 afforestation, than any such dictatorial powers in the hands 

 of a Minister could accomplish. 



We have got into the way of making rather light of the 

 difficulties standing in the way of the reclamation of waste 

 land. Ploughing up and sowing with wheat seems to be 

 considered such a very simple thing, securing a certain 

 harvest, even where the land is not simple pasture, but 

 has stones in it, and brash, or is soured with wet and raw in 

 the extreme ! It does not even occur to us that special 

 knowledge is required for the work. It seems such a 

 plausible programme, to propose to assign our wastes to the 

 discharged soldiers, whom we desire to plant upon the land, 

 as a matter of " doing something for them," as if giving a 

 man land to cultivate were equivalent to giving him a 



