Mosses and Peat 
land before only- worth ros. per acre was changed into 
good farmlands worth £5 per acre.* Strange to say, 
when one refers to Friih’s splendid and recent mono- 
graph (1904) on the Swiss moorlands and peat mosses,? 
one discovers there that what little is being done in 
scientific Switzerland seems to be by essentially the same 
methods as were employed by our forefathers in 1812. 
Burning, liming, and manuring are the usual methods ; 
but such artificials as Thomas slag, phosphates, or potash 
salts are also used. Dr. Frith himself says, “They show 
even to-day on the whole the same crops and the same 
simple culture as existed one or two hundred years 
ago.” The usual crops are potatoes, kohlrabi, carrots, 
oats, rye, wheat (spelt), peas, beans, and rape. 
In the North-Eastern United States, a kind of cran- 
berry (Vaccinium macrocarpum) is said to be cultivated 
on moorlands. Certain lands in New Jersey are rented 
at from 8 to 13 dollars per acre for this unusual crop, 
which has also been tried in North Germany. Accord- 
ing to Shaler,® there are some 100,000 acres of suitable 
cranberry land in the United States. 
So far as this country is concerned, one may perhaps 
say that all heather moorland up to a certain altitude 
(possibly two-thirds of the height of the highest hills in 
the neighbourhood) might be at once changed into forests 
by draining, planting with Scotch fir and other trees, and 
excluding sheep and deer. The author does not think 
that this is seriously denied by any scientific authority 
on such subjects. 
It is sometimes questioned whether it will pay to 
undertake such reafforestation, but the real reason which 
prevents anything being done seems to be the existence 
of grouse, and the fact that the forests would not benefit 
the present owners of the moors, who would be dead 
before they paid for their plantation. 
v7 
