Cultivating and Improving Waste*. }(>3 



feet of soft soils is, that the drought easily penetrates them, 

 and they become too open. The roller is an antidote to 

 that evil, and the expense is the only thing that ought to 

 set bounds to the practice of this operation. It also tends 

 to destroy those worms, grubs, and insects, with which light 

 and fenny land is apt to be infested. 



The roller for such soils ought not to be heavy, nor of 

 a narrow diameter. If it be weighty, and the diameter 

 small, it sinks too much where the pressure falls, which 

 causes the soft moss to rise before and behind the roller, and 

 thus, instead of consolidating, it rends the soil. A gentle 

 pressure consolidates moss, but too much weight has a con- 

 trary effect. A roller for moss, ought therefore to be form- 

 ed of wood, the cylinder about four feet diameter, and mount- 

 ed, so as to be drawn by two or three men. If horses are 

 employed, they ought to have clogs or pattens, if likely to 

 sink ( 48 ). The oftener the rolling is performed, on spongy 

 soils, (as long as the crops of corn or grass will admit of it), 

 the better, and the more certain is the result ( 49 ). 



After waste land has thus been reclaimed, it may of course 

 be still further improved, by the usual processes, to be after- 

 wards explained, under the several heads of inclosing^ drain- 

 ing^ manuring ( 5 ), irrigation, &c. Where such land, how- 

 ever, lies in a cold and exposed situation, or is so encumber- 

 ed with rocks and stones, that clearing them would be at- 

 tended with much expense, and where it would be of little 

 value in pasture, the best mode of improvement is certainly 

 by planting. Indeed, both in Scotland and in the Nether- 

 lands, it has been found, that planting waste lands, even in 

 low situations, is the surest means of laying a foundation for 

 their future fertility and cultivation ; the surface being thus 

 covered and the soil enriched, by the annual accession of 

 vegetable matter, from the decayed leaves ( 5l ). 



4. Rules to be observed regarding the Improvement of Waste 

 Lands. 



In the cultivation of wastes, the following rules may be 

 laid down : 



1. Not to attempt any scheme of improvement, without 

 the fullest deliberation, nor without the command of an ade- 

 quate capital, and above all, whatever is done, to do it effec- 

 tually^ and not to think of laying on four acres, the manure 



L 2 



