310 On the Agricultural Iniprovemcnts of Lincolnshire. 
nothing but the plough to become an excellent farm. A great 
(leal of worse moor, indeed, has been already enclosed : and a 
farmer informed me that, if he were allowed a field even of that 
inferior quality for one year rent-free, he would be content thence- 
forward to pay for it 10s. an acre — an important statement, as 
proving how trifling, in his judgment, is the outlay required for 
bi'inging this waste into a state of production ; and this is a point 
which makes the neglect of our moors the more extraordinary. 
It is about Matlock that the great central c:ham of moors begins 
which, running northward between Yorkshire and Lancashire, 
spreads into Scotland. I have not examined this chain, as I had 
hoped to do : but near Bakewell, 10 miles beyond Matlock, Mr. 
Greaves, an excellent farmer, showed me land which he had himself 
enclosed from the moor, bearing crops which would be good upon 
any old arable land, and that without having been drained ; for 
though even draining is no longer formidable, now that the materials 
are reduced from 90s. to 21s. per 1000 feet, Mr. Greaves's farm, 
like much other moor-land, was by nature perfectly sound. Between 
Bakewell and Chesterfield you cross the main ridge, now lying as 
shooting-moor, and see fern in the heather. At the summit, 
however, is a newly enclosed farm, of the Duke of Portland's, in a 
fair state of cultivation. Northwards, again, towards Slieflield, the 
shooting-moors occupv, I am told, good land ; and at their sum- 
mit, also, a single but very productive farm is to be found. In 
Northumberland, north of Alnwick, there is a long ridge of good 
moor : Vjut beyond the borders, from a high hill near Abbotsford, 
between Selkirk and Hawick, you look down upon a large part of 
South Scotland, and east, west, north, and south, you see nothing 
but one ridge of moor-land rising behind another — all, I believe, 
reclaimable land : though these Scotch moors seem to require 
draining, and so far expense. But the most extraordinary piece of 
waste ground is one I have just visited in England, Cannock 
Chase, a low ridge of 13,000 acres, in Staffordshire. The greater 
part has fern in the heath. A piece which was ploughed up for 
examination seemed a reddish, warm loam ; but a gentleman 
who had surveyed the whole moor, told me that this was by no 
means the best part of it, that little of it required draining — 
that he should put the whole, if ploughed, at from 10s. to 15s. 
an acre — and that there were 500 acres, every one of which 
was well worth 21. to rent if it were broken up. Yet the only 
stock on this moor are a few starving sheep ; though I saw 
grouse in abundance. Now this fertile wilderness looks down 
on one side upon the Potteries, and on the other side you may 
see the fires of the Dudley iron district, where vacant hands can- 
not have been wanting of late for its cultivation. It must be almost 
within view, too, of Lincoln Heath, where no ferns can have 
