38 Soil- Makers 



there is no vegetation but heath and coarse grass, and 

 though one has heard of labourers attempting to culti- 

 vate portions, and not without some success, it is im- 

 possible to say that the soil is naturally adapted for 

 either field or garden crops. The moor is flat enough, 

 indeed, to prevent the separation of the sand and clay, 

 and such minerals as the granite possesses are fairly 

 enough mixed without much loss by washing ; but the 

 natural poverty of the rock is aggravated by its elevated 

 situation on the one hand, and by the shallowness of 

 the soil on the other, and the soil therefore labours 

 under the two great disadvantages of a cold climate 

 and want of drainage. To the latter of these are due 

 the many bogs which abound, not only on Dartmoor, 

 but on the granites of Scotland, and the serpentine 

 rocks of the Lizard as well — everywhere, in fact, where 

 the soil lacks depth and the underlying rock is so close 

 and compact that water collects on the surface instead 

 of draining through. 



These moorlands and bog-lands are accordingly 

 dubbed ' waste ' by those who look at them only with 

 the eye of the farmer, and are reckoned among the 

 twenty odd million of uncultivated acres in Great 

 Britain, thirteen million of which are pronounced alto- 

 gether irreclaimable. 



Waste lands ! because the farmer cannot profitably 

 bring them under his plough and harrow ! as if that 

 were the only end for which soil could possibly be 

 wanted, and as if man and his domestic animals were 

 the only creatures requiring to be fed. Waste lands ! 

 where grouse and black game feed upon the heath 

 buds, where bog and moor are the summer haunt of 

 curlew and plover, not to mention the countless other 



