RECLAMATION OF WASTE LAND. 427 



And it is found to provide first-rate meadow and pasture. 

 That is in Germany, where stall feeding is common, found 

 to be a very appreciable advantage. For observation has 

 taught the Germans, rather late in the day, that young 

 stock, to grow up healthily, requires pasturing, were it 

 only for the sake of exercise and air. And high moor pas- 

 ture provides just what is wanted for the purpose, without 

 encroachment upon other cultivated land. 



There is another timely lesson still which German experi- 

 ence teaches. Our learned counsellors in the newspapers 

 have lately admonished us to confine ourselves in the matter 

 of reclamation of moorland to large areas only, and leave 

 the small patches of bog or marsh, distributed over private 

 estates, unconsidered. But in Germany very marked 

 attention has of late been paid more particularly to such 

 patches ; they have been improved with care and assiduity, 

 and by such means much valuable cultivated land has been 

 gained. If we are in earnest, we shall have to tithe our 

 mint and anise and cummin as well as obey the weightier 

 behests of the law. And in a national reckoning the small 

 patches total up to a goodly acreage. 



There is one more thought which foreign doings suggest 

 with regard to peat moss. Peat moss is not only there 

 to be reclaimed. We have plenty of it. And during the 

 war our supply of coal has been limited and has been menaced 

 with still greater shortage. There is heating power in peat 

 and we have a process at our command for turning it, as 

 the Germans do, into gas, and employing it for the genera- 

 tion of electricity. Why have we not, during the war, 

 drawn to a larger extent upon our resources in peat ? The 

 Governments of France and of Italy have been far more 

 on the alert. In Russia, where coal is scarce and peat 

 plentiful, the service of supplying peat for the market is 

 a standing feature in Government organisation. The 

 Government maintains a special college for peat engineers. 

 There are about a million tons of peat raised and put 

 upon the market annually, ordinarily at the price of some- 

 thing under ten shillings the ton. Not a Httle peat dust 

 is used for cattle food, in conjunction with the refuse of 



