PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 643 
back. Where the burning peat is thus extracted the excavation is in places 
pushed further until the underlying sand is reached, and enough of this is 
dug to spread over the reclaimed area to a depth of 4 or 5 inches and 
mixed by cultivation with the spongy peat. Even when the peat is not 
removed, pits are often made in order to sand the land, so great an improve- 
ment does it effect in the character of the crops. However, sanding is not 
possible everywhere, and there are great areas under cultivation where the 
reclamation begins with drainage, followed by the cultivation of the immediate 
surface without either sanding or the removal of the burning peat, which indeed 
are impossible over large areas, but are carried out by the owners of small 
farms little by little. Special tools are required: certain forms of disc-ploughs 
and harrows give the best results; heavy tools for large-scale cultivation by 
steam or electricity are furnished with broad roller-like wheels; even the horses 
must wear broad wooden shoes. 
The next stage is the manuring, and it has only been the development of 
the artificial-fertiliser industry during the last half-century that has rendered 
the cultivation of this type of land possible. On the alluvial moors where the 
ground water has always been alkaline, the peat is rich in calcium and no treat- 
ment with lime and marl is necessary (the English fens afford an example of 
this type of soil), but on the true peat-bogs (Hochmoor of Germany) the manur- 
ing must begin with a good dressing of burnt lime, or, better, of marl or ground 
chalk. For meadows and pastures two tons per acre of lime, or twice as much 
of carbonate of lime, should be applied; the amounts may be halved for arable 
land. This must be followed by about 5 to 8 cwt. per acre of basic slag and an 
equal amount of kainit, which applications should be renewed in the second 
year, but then diminished in accord with the cropping. However, some phos- 
phoric acid and potash salts must be continuously supplied, with occasional 
dressings of lime or chalk on the acid peaty areas. These latter also require 
in their earlier years nitrogenous manures, for the peat is slow to yield up the 
nitrogen it contains. The fertilisers should be nitrate of soda or lime, never 
sulphate of ammonia. The whole success of the reclamation depends on the 
use of these manures, as the peat in a state of nature is almost devoid of both 
phosphoric acid and potash; on the acid peats, again, normal growth is only 
possible after a neutral reaction has been attained by the use of lime or marl 
With this manuring it is found to be easy to establish a good meadow herbage 
in a very short space of time; it is not even necessary to get rid of the 
surface vegetation of Hrica and other heath and bog plants. The manure 
is put on and the surface is worked continuously with disc-harrows and follers, 
but never deeply; a seed-mixture containing chiefly red, white, and Alsike 
clovers, Lotus uliginosus, rye-grass, Timothy, and cocksfoot, is sown in the 
spring and soon succeeds in choking the native vegetation. 
It is impossible to say what is the cost of the reclamation of moorland in 
this fashion; the big expense is the drainage and the construction of roads, 
both of which are entirely determined by local conditions. But of the value of 
the process when accomplished there can be no doubt. I have seen a case quoted 
from the ‘ Ostfriesische Zeitung,’ where a piece of moor bought for 75/. was 
reclaimed and sold for 900/.; and, best test of all, one may see in places like the 
Teufelsmoor near Bremen, families living in comfort on thirty to forty acres 
_ of what was once merely wild moor with no productive value. 
Of even greater interest in England is the reclamation of heath-land, which 
has of late years been proceeding apace in Germany. In this category we may 
include all land which owes its infertility to the coarse grade and low water- 
retaining power of the particles of which the soil is composed, the soil being 
at the same time as a rule devoid of carbonate of lime, and covered in conse- 
quence with heather and similar calcifuge plants. In England there exist 
extensive tracts of uncultivated land of this character in close proximity to the 
considerable populations, but the process of reclaiming such land for agriculture 
seems to have come to an abrupt conclusion somewhere about 1850, when the 
developing industries of the country began to offer so much greater returns for 
capital than agriculture. That land of the kind can be cultivated with success 
is evident from the mere fact that everywhere prosperous farms may be seen 
bordering the wastes, possessing soils that are essentially identical with those of 
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