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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[March, 



more Ihan fwo months of tlie year, and tlien have nothing but coarse 

 semi-aqiiatic grasses to feed on ; these are produced on a tine alhivial 

 soil, twelve inches deep, incumbent on lime stone gravel, but saturated 

 with water. Sdll this has not been done. Why? Because only one 

 of the proprietors agrees to assist in defraying the expenses of the 

 work. In another case, an intelligent Scotch proprietor had 20 acres 

 incapable of being drained, from the shallowness of the river, and 

 consequently uncultivated ; live acres are fit, to use his own terms, 

 " ;is pasture for a flock of geese only," the cost of this work is £ 140 ; 

 it is in progress of execution at his sole expense, and the increased 

 value wdl be 8s. per acre by his estimate, by mine 12s.; however 

 take his, and yon will see the interest of 5 per cent, can be paid, even 

 in the latter case. How much more in the former? 



I think I have shown there is room for the profitable employment 

 of the people, in the regulation of rivers, and that to a very consider- 

 able extent. But how is it to be done ? Not by Government volun- 

 teering to assist proprietors for the purpose of inducing them to 

 improve their estates; not by ofti?ring loans to the estates requiring 

 them ; nor by a drainage bill empowering two to force one, alone. If 

 these steps are relied upon, they will be found miserably insuflficient. 

 Government if they wish to improve the condition of the landowners 

 and peasantry, must act on Napoleon's plan. Give the proprietor a 

 choice of borrowing from them the money required, and executing 

 tlie work himself, under the direction of district engineers, appointed 

 by a board of intelligent agricultural gentlemen, assisted by expe- 

 rienced civil engineers, sitting in Dublin; and then say if you do not 

 do this tm will, and will then apportion the share of expense according 

 to the benefit derived, for which your estates must pay the interest. 

 The law of the land recognises this principle. In 1732 the Barren 

 Land Act was passed by the Irish Parliament, which empowered the 

 Court of Chancery to enquire into the interests of persons claiming 

 waste lands, and to oblige Hum to conlribule to the drainage thereof in 

 proportion, to sitch their interest. Common sense points out, that where 

 a dense and starving population require employment, and that means 

 for providing them therewith can be usefully applied, not only for 

 their benefit, but also for tlie benefit of the country at large, that where 

 private objections, or narrow minded niggardliness, obstruct the good, 

 that they should be disregarded ; and even if it were allowed that the 

 rights of property would be interfered with, still, is the public good 

 to be sacrificed by the neglect and incompetence of landed proprietors? 

 Should they not be compelled to see their own interests and benefit 

 mankind? It is only such persons that could complain ; the improving 

 man of intelligence would rejoice ; for the good he intended doing 

 could no longer be nullified by the neglect of his neighbour. 



Another means of giving employment and improving the condition 

 of the people, is by the reclamation of waste lands; I do not mean 

 the bogs: there is enough to do without them, and our successors in 

 some centuries to come may find it to be then perhaps to their ad- 

 vantage to undertake this. The Waste Land Society, of which the 

 Earl of Devon is chairman, have begun in the right way; but the 

 limited means at their command, compared to the demand for their 

 assistance, enable them to be a model only to Government. I at- 

 tended the last annual inspection made by his Lordship on the lands 

 of Ballinakill. Three years before that I visited it; then it was a 

 wild, dreary, desolate mountain ; now how does it look? Seventy or 

 eighty families are living in comfort on it, the cottages are clean, neat 

 and comfortable, the crops equalling, if not excelling, those grown in 

 the demesne of the neighbouring Baronet; good roads have been 

 formed, fences erected, draining executed, turnips and clovers feed 

 their stock, and all appears improving and satisfactory. A neigh- 

 bouring gentleman, Mr. Featherstone, has purchased a tract of the 

 same mountain, his tenants surpassed, if possible, in improvement, the 

 Society's. He has built a handsome residence for himself and family, 

 young plantations have sprung up, and in as sheltered and comfortable 

 a spot as the most fastidious could wish for, where a few years since 

 a solitary bird could not be seen, so desolate appeared the place; 

 there he told me all he did had paid him, he had created an estate, 

 and that many of his tenants having reclaimed, with some Httle as- 

 sistance from him, portions of land, had sold their interest in them to 

 others for large sums, and taking a new spot, had begun again in the 

 same mountain ; and were in better circumstances than the lowland 

 men holding the same sized farms. But how was this? The answer 

 is worthy of particular attention. On the Society's and Mr. Feather- 

 stone's tracts the tenants were not allowed to waste their time in la- 

 borious unprofitableness; they were instructed what to do, in reclaim- 

 ing, draining, and cropping, by experienced agriculturists, employed 

 by the proprietors to do so; and in this only lies the secret. The 

 educated man's duty was to think, advise, instruct: the labouring 

 man's to act, and well has the system answered. There are a million 

 and a half acres of such mountain wastes iu Ireland, which if im. 



I proved, would support 3000 families, or 180,000 person-!. Witliout 

 alluding to the advantage bringing this into cultivation would be to 

 England, in the increased supply of provisions to your markets, without 

 looking to the great national improvement this would be, but merely 

 viewing it as a charitable act, how immeasurably does it surpass the 

 poor relief acts, the emancipation and other political measures. 



How can this be done? Easily. Large sums are annually voted to 

 the Dublin Society, and expended in their botanic gardens, &c. Let 

 Government grant £10,000. per annum to assist the Waste Land 

 Society. Colonel Robinson knows well what to do with it; and if 

 with so much money he should at all hesitate how to apply it, the 

 Earl of Devon can assist him. Associated with them, let there be Cap- 

 tain Larcom, Captain Kennedy, or perhaps Mr. Stewart French, would 

 be better, as he knows where, and how to begin; let him be the repre- 

 sentative of Government ; and I venture to say that with such men, 

 with an efficient statF of practical men, and backed with the £10,000; 

 more would be done for the improvement of this country, in an in- 

 credibly short space of time, than 100,000 soldiers could ever accom- 

 plish. 



There are said to be 300,000 acres of land covered by the expan- 

 sion of lakes and rivers, to which may be added IJOO.OOO acres that 

 are saturated with water, rendered unprofitable, but uncovered; 

 £10,000,000 per annum of agricultural produce is said to be lost to 

 the kingdom by unreclaimed land ; and yet nearly three millions of 

 the inhabitants are destitute from the want of employment. Now if 

 such statements are true, and they have been reported by Government 

 officers, if England pays for agricultural produce £10,000,000 per 

 annum to foreign nations, which could be provided her by this country, 

 and if in addition to this a dense and starving population are discon- 

 tented, almost disaffected, and that this is occasioned by the want of 

 employment, surely it is the interest of the British Government to 

 try the experiment I most humbly have recommended, and the result, 

 there can be no doubt, will fully equal that obtained by the Waste 

 Land Society. 



But these plans only relieve the persons without land ; what is to 

 be done for those occupying it? Before I state ray opinion, allow me 

 to put you right as to the landlords of Ireland. As a class, they are 

 the most abused, but I am happy lo say, it is by those who know least 

 about them. Their worst fault is, I believe, that they do not see their 

 own interests sufficiently, that they view their estates with local eyes, 

 instead of doing so with eyes enlightened by a study of other coun- 

 tries, by viewing what has been done in other places through judi- 

 cious improvements. It is really very difficult to convince many that 

 their incomes can be at all increased by improvements; and when we 

 see men who are presumed to be educated, still lingering in the old 

 beaten track of dubiousness, unwilling to try for the improvement of 

 their condition, because their fathers did not do, as we would, it is not 

 a matter of surprise that those under them, the uneducated, should 

 follow and persevere in the systems practised of old, which they have 

 been taught almost to revere, certainly to follow, changes from which, 

 their superiois have characterised as theoretic nonsense, wild specula- 

 tions, mad schemes, &c. But to return to the calumnies heaped on 

 landlords ; many have ejected, in some cases I believe with unnecessary 

 crueltv, but il is not general; I know many inheriting fine estates, and 

 large debts, good men, incapable of assisting their tenants, and unable 

 to allow time for payment of rent from the pressure of their creditors. 

 These men, if they are not paid, are compelled to seek tenants ca- 

 pable of doing so. Then comes the difficulty of obtaining possession ; 

 the occupier knowing the impossibility of obtaining subsistence if he 

 leaves, endeavours to retain possession in spite of law, and the land- 

 lord is compelled to obtain an habere — scenes of distress follow. But 

 what is the cause of them ? iVant of labour. In fact, I believe if 

 constant employment could be obtained, many of the small farmers 

 would give up their holdings, and that farms might be consolidated, 

 which, with improvement in the system of agriculture, would be a 

 vast advantage to the country; but whilst the deficiency of employ- 

 ment continues, I consider it cannot be done without causing so much 

 misery that no advantage to a few could justify. Had Irish landlords, 

 English tenants, or tenants with the same capital, same education, and 

 same intelligence, you would hear nothing of the disagreements of 

 landlord and tenant. The Irish would not be a whit behind the Eng- 

 lish landlords, and Ireland would be prosperous; but to do this, you 

 must raise the character of the Irish tenant, and this brings me to the 

 subject of the improvement of the small Irish farmer. All you re- 

 quire to do, is to instruct him in the practice of agriculture. I look 

 upon it to be as absurd to put a good piece of land into the hands of 

 small farmers, uneducated, understanding nothing of the proper sys- 

 tems of farming, such as the Irish small farmer, and direct him to 

 manage it, as it would be to give, one who never learned to write, a good 

 pen, and order him to do so. They must be taught. Agriculture is 



