4:94 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 



on a topic of current interest and considerable national importance. The 

 abstracts which follow represent the subject-matter of the papers communicated 

 on the occasion referred to. 



Waste lands may be defined as ground not hitherto exploited, or, at any 

 rate, utilised only to a slight extent. They are capable of great improvement 

 in respect of fertility and of being put to unaccustomed uses. 



As the recent tendency for land ha* been to fall from a higher to a lower 

 economic plane, waste lands, which from this point of view lie at the bottom, 

 have received relatively little consideration. 



With the changed conditions brought by the war, it has become necessary 

 that food and other raw products should be raised at home in increasing quanti- 

 ties. Thus in eome measure our imports will be restricted, money will be kept 

 in the country, and additional rural occupations found for our people. 



Lands remain waste, i.e., unproductive, in an old country like Great Britain 

 from some obstinate physical or chemical defect, or from lack of intelligence 

 or imagination in the matter of their exploitation. The principal causes may 

 be grouped under the following heads : — 



(1) Poverty in some ingredient directly or indirectly essential to plant growth, 



e.g., nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, or lime. 



(2) Mohility : liability to erosion by sea, rivers, rain, or wind. Animals such 



as rabbits have a similar effect on light sandy soils. 



(3) Toxicity, from acidity of soil or presence of salt. 



(4) Dryness, which can be corrected by irrigation. 



(5) Reinoteness. 



(6) Ignorance, inertia, deliberate intention, and general ' cussedness.' 



Roughly speaking, there are two ways of exploiting such terrains. 



(1) Utilisation — the fostering of the spontaneous vegetation which may have 



an economic value by the introduction of method and technique. 

 Thus a salt-marsh might be utilised for the cultivation of an economically 

 valuable halophyte. 



(2) Conversion or reclamation — the terrain may be transformed by stabilising, 



draining, irrigating, or altering in other ways involving great expense 

 and labour, so that the land may be used for raising crops that would 

 not grow upon it were it not so treated. 

 According to this system, a salt-marsh would be banked and drained, and 

 transformed into arable ground. 



It is often forgotten that waste land is rich in many things, that it is a 

 soil on which the sun shines. Ideas and unremitting toil in carrying them 

 out are here, as elsewhere, the only road to success. The exploitation of waste 

 lands has the especial attraction of being pioneer work ; for, generally speaking, 

 exploitation will involve doing sometliing with them which has never been 

 done before. 



The communications which follow deal with several types of such land and 

 from a variety of points of view. 



I. The Planting of Pit Mounds. By P. E. Martineau. 



Waste lands are of two kinds, natural and artificial, and this paper deals 

 solely with the latter. It relates to experimental work of the Midland 

 Reafforestinig Association in the districts of South Staffordshire and North 

 Worcestershire, known as the Black Country. 



The Association came into existence in 1903, and completed its first two 

 plantations at the end of 1904, some five acres. The total area now under 

 trees is about eighty acres. 



The district lies high, from 500 to 700 feet above the sea, and is on the 

 main watershed of England. Part of it therefore slopes rapidly S.W. towards 

 the Severn and the greater part very gradually northwards towards the Trent. 

 The rainfall is approximately 30 inches per annum. The wind is strong and 

 the banks are much exposed to it. 



The banks are of three main types, furnace-slag, clunch or shale, and burnt 

 out coal -waste or carbonaceous shale. Of these, the first may be neglected as 



