Improvement of Waste or Unproductive Lands. 515 



SECT. VII. To promote the Improvement of Waste or Unpro- 

 ductive Lands. 



IT is of peculiar importance to a country, increasing in 

 population, to be constantly adding to its productive terri- 

 tory. There are different ways by which that object may 

 be promoted : 1. By facilitating the division, drainage, em- 

 bankment, and improvement of commons, meadows, or 

 other intermixed lands ; at least in all cases where two-thirds, 

 or three-fourths of the parties concerned, are in favour of 

 any such measure ; and this benefit might be made attain- 

 able, by an act of the legislature, authorising an application 

 to the Quarter Sessions in England, or Sheriffs in Scotland, 

 to order an inspection, and a report of the expense, &c. to 

 be made, and after hearing parties, to decide on the pro- 

 priety of the application. If then approved of, the direc- 

 tion and execution of the improvement, should be referred 

 to commissioners ; 2. By exempting from the payment of 

 tithes and poor-rates, for a term of years, according to the 

 expense of the improvement, waste lands brought into cul- 

 tivation ; and, 3. By fixing the price at which foreign corn 

 should be permitted to be imported free of duty, at such a 

 sum, as will enable a British farmer, to defray the expense 

 of reclaiming waste, or improving uncultivated land. For 

 unless this be done, it is impossible, that the produce of our 

 barren soils, cultivated at a great expense, can stand a com-" 

 petition, with the produce of the fertile fields of other coun- 

 tries, where the expense of cultivation must, comparatively 

 speaking, be inconsiderable. 



Among our unproductive lands, a large proportion of those 

 subject to the process of fallow, ought to be included. In 

 Scotland, owing to the stubbornness of its clayey soils, and 

 the wetness of its climate, any material diminution cannot 

 at present take place ; nor until the soil is rendered much 

 more friable, which it will probably be, in the course of 

 such improved cultivation as these lands now experience. 

 But there are extensive tracts in England, where, instead of 

 a naked fallow, turnips, and other green crops, might now 

 be cultivated with advantage; and by means of which, food 

 might be raised, more than we are now under the necessity 

 of importing from other countries. 



