The Making of the Land in England. 
361 
hand, and grazed with cattle and sheep, and in 1867 it was let 
as a farm at the annual rent of 800/. In 1874 on a revaluation, 
this rent was increased to 824/., the improved land heing then 
valued at 6s. %d. per acre. The result of the operations, there- 
fore, financially, is an expenditure of 24/. 7s. 6rf. an acre (more 
than half of which was for liming, the effect of which cannot 
be regarded as permanent), and an increased rental of 5s. 8rf. 
an acre, or a little over one per cent, on the capital employed. 
There can be no grounds in this case for assuming that the 
owner has been benefited by any " natural increment of value." 
On the contrary, the case furnishes a very striking and useful 
proof of the need of caution and moderation on the part of 
those who might be inclined to fasten on owners a legal 
obligation to bring waste lands and grouse moors into 
cultivation. 
To complete the history of this improvement, it must be 
added that whilst the land when covered with heather was a 
splendid piece of grouse moor which would now have com- 
manded a game rent of 2s. Qd. per acre, it has been rendered 
valueless for that purpose : so that deducting, as is proper, this 
sum from the improved rent of 5s. 8c/., we arrive at a nett 
financial gain of 3s. 2d. per acre, or a return of about 13s. per 
annum on an expenditure of 100/. If either by the un- 
flagging zeal of the owner or, as is sometimes suggested, under 
State compulsion, the improved condition of the land is to be 
preserved, the liming, the effects of which are gradually wearing 
out, will have to be renewed at a cost which, with present 
prices of produce, hardly promises to be remunerative. 
Another instance of reclamation of waste land in a northern 
county of England may be worth mentioning. The common 
comprised about 4000 acres, one half of which was enclosed 
about six years ago, under the authority of Parliament. The 
proprietor of an estate in the manor, who was favourable to this 
enclosure, received in respect of such estate an allotment of 113 
acres of cold moorland, growing rushes and coarse grass. At a 
cost of 400/. this was fenced and open-drained, and the enclo- 
sure expenses discharged. The largest offer to rent this allot- 
ment has been 12Z. Probably at the present time it would not 
command 10/. And as the common right prior to the enclosure 
was worth about 5/., the resulting nett gain from this improve- 
ment or subjugation of the waste has been 5/. per annum, or 
1^ per cent, on the capital applied. 
It will be proper next to examine into the extent and cost of 
those secondary operations which a survey of the general features 
of the country informs us must have followed its recovery from a 
state of nature, and to estimate the approximate cost per acre of 
