262 Agricultural Capabilities of the New Forest. 
mean small freeholders. The strictly legal compecsation to these people 
would not recoup them the benefits they now derive ; but then it may truth- 
fully be said they now <!;ct more than they have legal right to. 
" 5. A great deal of laud, similar in appearance and quality, commences at 
Aldershot and continues from thence to Verwood and the neighbourhood 
of Wimborne. Having crossed the Stour valley you again meet with the 
same description of land, extending to the neighbourhood of Dorchester. All 
through this district considerable quantities of land have been brought into 
cultivation with variable success, although generally to the loss of the first 
beginner. Still, once broken w\i, the soils have been kept in cultivation ; and, 
becoming gradually improved, they support a considerable population, and 
add materially to the wealth of the country. 
" The cost of bringing such land into cultivation varies according to situation 
and circumstances. 
" With the New Forest laud you will have to consider — 
Cost of drainage. 
Cost of staple improvement. 
Cost of breaking. 
Cost of fencing. 
Cost of necessary buildings. 
These items will reach at least 151. per acre. Add to this the amount per acre 
the land would fetch if sold, as I propose, and then estimate the value to rent ; 
and, whether a lucrative investment will be the result or not, much good will 
be effected and the national wealth increased." 
I do not require any excuse in callinof particular attention to 
one or two strong points in Mr. Bone's remarks, in which I 
entirely coincide. (1.) The necessity, supposing the Forest is to 
be broken up, of dealing with the enclosures and wooded part, as 
well as the open wastes, and so arranging the sale lots that each 
may partake of both classes of soil. (2.) The certainty that the 
timber would not be depreciated by such sales, as it would be 
equally well protected in the hands of private owners as in that 
of the Commissioners. 
Some little idea as to the prospect of recompence likely to 
arise from breaking up waste lands of an apparently unfavourable 
type may be afforded by examples of various commons in South 
Hampshire, and particularly in the neighbourhood of Botley, 
Bunsledon, and Titchfield. One of the most recent is the 
latter. The many occasions on which I have ridden and driven 
over these wastes enables me to testify as to their former most 
unfavourable appearance, and the emblems of barrenness afforded 
by their productions or by the appearance of their subsoil when 
it was brought to the surface occasionally. The success that has 
attended those efforts is sufficient to lead to the inference, that 
no matter what the main portion of the soil consists of — whether 
chalk or gravel, sand or clay — if we get rid of the surplus bottom 
water where it exists, and by deep cultivation and an admixture 
of soils render the land capable of retaining a proper amount of 
moisture, cultivation and manuring will supply all the rest. 
One of the most recent instances afforded is that of Titchfield 
