142 FARMERS' REGISTER— CULTIVATION AND WASTE LANDS, &c. 



vestisration — and not in tlie study and lalioratory 

 altogether, but also in stables and amidst dunghills. 

 I fear that we shall never see one Jiiake the attempt 

 in any way — though the investigation offers and 

 promises results that would be most honorable to 

 the discoverer, and of incalculable value to agri- 

 culture, and indeed to the human race. Chemists 

 neglect agricultural investigations, and seem to 

 consider them as unworthy of scientilic research. 

 Yet, if a discovery was announced of some new 

 metal, or new acid, found so rarely and in such 

 small quantities, that the whole globe would never 

 furnish a pound together, and of which no man 

 could conceive any possible use — every chemist 

 would feel interested in the suliject, and more would 

 be done for its investigation than agriculture has 

 ever owed to their whole body. 



J. B. 



ONTPIECULTIVATIOIV AND WASTE LANDS, AND 

 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE PAUPER COLO- 

 NIES OF HOLLAND. 



From the Quarterly Review. 



Amidst the party violence necessarily attend- 

 ing the unsettled state of the great question which 

 renders Ireland the weakness instead of the strength 

 of the empire, we are more than ever bound to turn 

 our thougiits to those measures for ameliorating 

 the condition of her people, which wise and bene- 

 volent men from time to time propose. We wish 

 to avoid emigration ; and had much rather do some- 

 thing at home — something that shall keep the peo- 

 ple and make them useful. 



The experiment of cultivation at home has been 

 tried, and tried with very great success by the 

 Dutch — a people who have always been famed for 

 their prudence, the judicious way in which they 

 conducted their internal management, and the 

 care that they have taken of their poor. There 

 are at present lying before us, three separate ac- 

 counts of the "Pauper Colonies of Holland" — 

 svhich are established upon lands naturally far 

 worse than the average of the five millions of acres 

 in Ireland. One of tliese accounts is in a volume 

 by Mr. Sadler, entitled "Ireland, its Evils, and 

 their Remedies :" another is by a member of "the 

 Highland Society of Scotland;" and the third is 

 'by Mr. Jacob, the well-known reporter on the 

 .corn trade. Without meaning to throw any doubt 

 upon the others, we shall abridge what we have to 

 say from Mr. Jacob, because he gives his name, 

 and because his account is shorter, and in our 

 opinion, clearer than any of the others. 



Mr. Jacob's observations have been published 

 by "the society for improving the condition of the 

 lower order of tenantry, and of the laboring po- 

 pulation of Ireland;" and though the committee of 

 that society have not yet published their report, or 

 even matured their plan, it is probatile that they 

 may suggest, if not attempt, something similar to 

 what has been effected in Holland. 



In the observation prefatory to the account of the 

 Dutch colonies, Mr. Jacob very successfully com- 

 bats the objections that are usually made to the im- 

 provement of the poorer soils, both from general 

 principles, and from practical cases. 



Of late there have sprung up some very invete- 

 rate prejudices upon this subject. They mainly 

 originated with the late Mr. Ricardo. But he 

 looked only at the money value, the artificial value, 



of things; and was not aware of that natural value 

 which costs society nothing. Adam Smith set 

 down the "land and labor" as the primary sour- 

 ces of wealth; the moderns threw out the land al- 

 together, and confined the value to the labor. 

 Among other false conclusions to which this led 

 them, was the doctrine that the cultivation of cer- 

 tain lands — that is, of lands that will not yield a 

 certain return for the labor, and not bestowed upon 

 them, is a loss, ntjt comparatively, as measured by 

 the other occupations in which they who cultivate 

 the land might be employed, but absolutely and 

 in itself Now, if people can do better, it is not 

 prudent for them to cultivate bad land, or even 

 good land; or in fact to do any thing but that which 

 is better; hut if they can do no better, then the 

 ploughing of the most arid waste in the kingdom, 

 or even the scratching of it with their hands, if it 

 will thereby yield them any produce, is not only 

 advisable, but absolutely necessary. Some por- 

 tions of almost every country, and some whole 

 countries that are now the most productive and 

 profitable, v/erc at one time complete deserts. In 

 spite of the rights of commonage, and the bad ef- 

 fect of tithes, there are many acres of this descrip- 

 tion in England ; there are many more in Scotland ; 

 and the whole of Holland, and much of the north 

 of Germany and the peninsula of Jutland, were 

 originally barren sands, and have been brought to 

 their present state by repeated cultivation, the 

 first efforts of which were what these persons 

 would have called unproductive. If there be any 

 vegetable mould, however poor ; if there be any 

 stony matter in a state of divison like sand; if 

 there even be the bare rock as a flooring to lay 

 soil upon — that is one element of fertility and pro- 

 duction that costs nothing. One of the finest crops 

 of potatoes, both as to quantity and quality, that 

 ever we saw, was beside the huts of some fisher- 

 men on the coast of Loch Ailsh, on the west coast 

 of Ross-shire ; they had been planted on the bare 

 rock, and merely supplied with two layers of turf 

 from a bog at some distance, one below the seed- 

 sets, another over. The air is another important 

 element of fertility — so very important that not 

 one of the vegetable functions can be performed 

 without it; and the air costs nothing. The rain 

 and the dew, even the snow of winter, and the 

 frost that pulverizes the clods, are all elements of 

 fertility ; and they cost nothing. So also is the 

 genial influence of the sun. In fact, if there be 

 but room and climate, (and the latter may be won- 

 derfully improved by cultivation,) we are in pos- 

 session of all the essential natural elements of 

 plenty, and human industry can supply the rest. 



Cultivation l)y cottagers has been very success- 

 fully employed in many parts of Scotland, not for 

 the mere support of a local population, but with a 

 view of bringing a large surplus ultimately into the 

 market. In some places, where the moor or waste 

 is of superior quality, and the climate good, the 

 cottagers pay a rent from the beginning of their 

 operations; and, in some places, they are allowed 

 something annually to commence with, and are 

 bound to bring so much soil into cultivation every 

 year, till, at the expiration of a stipulated time, 

 they pay rent. In one place in the north, this 

 mode of cultivation was begun many years ago 

 close by the shore ; and the cottages have moved 

 gradually up the hill, leaving land behind them fit 

 for being converted into large farms, while they 



