428 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



sugar beet and other moist feeding-stuffs. In France the 

 digging of peat has long since, for the period of the war, 

 been placed under Government direction, and a special 

 department has been created to supervise it, in order that 

 there may be full production, on correct lines, and no waste. 

 In Italy the Government has by public notice called upon 

 all landowners in possession of peat moss to work such, failing 

 which, within a given time, the authorities threaten to author- 

 ise other persons to dig and sell the turf. Bounties of 250 

 and 500 lire have been offered to those who make deposits 

 of peat, not hitherto used, available for public use. In 

 time of war — tout sert d menage. And where coal fails, 

 and straw fails for litter, peat is after all worth considering. 



In the Scandinavian kingdoms, during the war, in view 

 of the exceptional scarcity of coal, the rich deposits of peat 

 in those countries have been largely drawn upon for the 

 supply of fuel. In Norway the output from the large peat 

 deposits near Stavanger, which in ordinary times is 1,000 

 tons per month, has been raised to 10,000 tons ; and there 

 are now 216 steam engines employed in cutting and moving 

 it, in the place of only fifty-five in 1916. In Denmark the 

 output has increased from 90,000 tons in 1915 to 200,000 

 tons in 1916. In Sweden the output, already grown to 

 100,000 tons in 1915, was to be doubled in 1916. 



Enough has probably been said to show that, if we wiU 

 only take advantage of the precedents set us^as est ah 

 hoste doceri — there is a good deal of improvement of our 

 patenia rura within our reach in the matter of reclamation 

 of alluvial and bogland. 



However, the point in connection with this policy of 

 reclamation which is likely to absorb greatest attention 

 among ourselves, and enlist most interest, is that of the 

 turning of those millions of acres which now lie unprofitably 

 idle in the shape of bare hill- sides and mountain- tops, some- 

 times covering their nakedness with the euphemistic descrip- 

 tion of " sheep walks " — often sparingly spotted with scrub 

 and valueless brushwood, or else with swampy moss and 

 useless marsh herbage and rushes — into good profitable 

 forest. Speaking of such almost methodical neglect of 



