4i8 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICUUfURE. 



satisfactory results. Very much of the land now under 

 cultivation in Ireland has in this way been secured for 

 pasturage or tillage by little skilled native labour. And 

 there are many pieces of land on this side of St. George's 

 Channel which might be dealt with in the same way by 

 simple labourers taken from the neighbourhood. But that 

 is not like setting an unskilled soldier fresh from the camp 

 to the task and making a peace-time Cincinnatus of him. 



In respect of one particular description of improving work 

 waiting to be taken in hand there will be found a perfect 

 unison of opinion, and there is not likely to be much dis- 

 agreement with regard to the methods to be adopted in 

 accomplishing it. That task is the reclamation of our 

 alluvial or else marsh- and bog-covered land, so much of 

 Avhich at present lies reproachfully idle. Acres and acres 

 there are of black alluvial soil in the estuaries of our East 

 Coast, both north and south of the Tweed ; and again, dis- 

 tant from the sea, in the river valleys of Wales. And other 

 acres and acres there are of bogland, peat and moss, pre- 

 senting a picture of miserable desolation, yielding nothing 

 except it be a home for waterfowl or a few blades of innutri- 

 tious grass for the tooth of hardy stock, but concealing 

 under such uninviting surface the fertility of the best loam. 



We know how to deal with soil of the first kind alluded 

 to. For ages ago the Dutchman Vermuyden taught us in 

 what manner to proceed to render it profitable, and though 

 his work was interrupted by a foolishly opposing peasantry, 

 the rich lowlands of Epworth, Thorne Moors and Hatfield 

 Chase now show us what may be effected by draining, 

 unsalting by rain, and also by warping, and careful culti- 

 vation. There is luscious grass in the lower parts, with 

 a belt of fertile arable land above it, and the improvement 

 reaches still higher up. Why not improve all our alluvial 

 deposits and promising fenland in the same way ? 



Then there are the long stretches" of coast, over which 

 the sea breeze now blows — the meal-like sand from the shift- 

 ing sand dunes making them barren. How much of that 

 land is there not to be secured for Agriculture by fixing 

 the dune-sand with vegetation — vegetation, be it what it 



