WASTE LANDS 31 
grass land alone, then Breckland should carry trees. 
A decision without full data is very difficult, and 
ought not to be made hastily. 
A further alternative is also possible, viz. that these 
areas should be partly afforested and partly converted 
into tillage. This method has two advantages. The 
woodlands would give shelter to the ploughed-up land, 
and they would also guarantee work in winter for the 
farm labourers, thus providing the countryside with 
another useful bulwark. If the view repeatedly ex- 
pressed in recent discussions be well founded, viz. 
that a closer entente between forestry and agriculture 
is necessary for the success of both, there would 
seem to be a reasonable probability that a division of 
Breckland on these lines might prove to be the best 
economic policy to pursue. 
So far as sandy heaths are concerned, there can be 
no doubt whatever of their amenability to profitable - 
reclamation alike for tillage and forestry. This has been 
firmly established on the continent of Europe, and 
nowhere more convincingly than in the Netherlands. 
The peoples of the Low Countries are the world’s: 
pioneers in reclamation work. In England, and 
especially in East Anglia, we have in the past been much 
beholden to the Dutch in showing us how to drain and 
utilise our fen lands and salt marshes ; whilst in times 
still more remote, the Prussians received instruction 
from the same source. When Albert the Bear over- 
came the Wends about the year 1170, he peopled 
Brandenburg with refugees from Holland whom the 
overrunning of the Zuider Zee had rendered homeless. 
These were ‘‘ men thrown out of work who knew how to 
