CONCLUSION. 4S5 



It has, I think, been shown that there are more ways than 

 one of usefully reclaiming bog or waste. In the reclamation 

 of bog and peatland Holland and German}^ have been 

 particularly active, and, it may be added, successful ; and 

 the methods which they have practised are at any rate varied 

 enough to show that the work of reclamation may readily 

 be adapted to varying conditions. They also show into 

 what very valuable agricultural land unprofitable bog desert 

 may be converted. And, once more, how admirably peat 

 moss lends itself to employment for the purpose of creating 

 small holdings, and whole clusters of small holdings, and 

 communities of small cultivating folk. 



Our favourite fancy at present is to employ newly enlisted 

 agricultural labourers in the reclamation of waste, among 

 others by preference discharged soldiers, invalided or other- 

 wise. The demand for turning waste under reclamation to 

 account for the creation of small holdings is very old. Sir 

 James Caird advocated it nearly seventy years ago. And 

 long before him so did Arthur Young. " Every scrap of 

 waste and neglected land," so he urged in 1800 "should be 

 converted into possessions for the poor, and all labourers 

 should be assigned gardens and grass land for the keep of a 

 cow." In 1801 he proposed that labourers should be allowed 

 to absorb for themselves the small commons which were 

 situated in the centre of enclosed districts, and that all Acts 

 of Parliament for the reclamation of wastes should attach 

 enough land to every cottage to provide summer and winter 

 keep for a cow, the land to be inalienable and vested in the 

 parish. And afterwards he expressed particular regret that 

 the matter had been left out of sight and a glorious oppor- 

 tunity for providing agricultural labourers with small hold- 

 ings had been missed. 



Those were times when Agriculture was a different thing 

 from what it is now. And Arthur Young was careful to 

 confine the claim for reclamation rights to " agricultural 

 labourers," assumed to be skilled in their intended work. 

 But even then imskilled Labour might very well be set to 

 work on the execution of reclamation with a view to obtain- 

 ing a little property or holding for the worker. Since then, 



