COMMONS 57 



the parings cost 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. per acre. After the ashes were 

 spread, lime was applied at the rate of 150 to 250 bushels per acre at 

 a cost of 3d. per bushel, with the cost of carting to be added ; it was 

 spread as soon as it was sufficiently fallen and ploughed in between 

 Lammas and Martinmas in view of seeding with oats in the spring. 

 On these lines J. Watson, of Kendal, estimated the total cost of 

 reclaiming the land at not more than £8 per acre, basing his estimate 

 on an experience of twenty years to 1845 and in dealing with over 

 2000 acres. 



Land of the poorest quality was inclosed and treated in this 

 way. On the inclosure of a five-acre allotment at Black Muss, near 

 Windermere, which was deemed beyond the power of cultivation, being 

 drained and covered with no bushels of lime to the acre, in 1817, 

 the following year four cart loads of hay were obtained from it ; in 1819 

 20 cart loads were obtained from the same five acres. 



On many of the commons where peat did not exist, the " prickings " 

 or tough sward from the ordinary grass common were used for fuel. 

 To such an extent did this pertain that pasturage was seriously inter- 

 fered with and on Grayrigg Common the practice was summarily 

 stopped by the parish clerk giving notice in the churchyard that no 

 more " prickings " were to be dug from that time forth. 



On much of the reclaimed land, while the price continued high, 

 corn was grown year after year, indeed as long as it would, when the 

 ground was left to grass itself ; but with all the better class of farmers 

 a white crop was succeeded by a green, such as turnips, rye, clover 

 or potatoes for seed, from the new land, and sown down the third 

 or fourth year. With such treatment a permanent improvement 

 was effected, but the tendency was always to keep the plough going 

 to the ultimate deterioration of the land. 



Soon after 1850 paring and burning became a process of the past 

 and quickly dropped into disuse— it was superseded by ploughing 

 after draining with a much lighter application of lime. Of similar 

 land to that above mentioned, heather and bents and under 1000 

 feet, Wm. Cottam, in 1877, in a prize essay on the " Improvement 

 of Waste Land " gives the following estimate of cost per acre for 

 reclaiming : — 



