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VIII. — Reclamation of Bog and Moorland in Galway. By 
Charles Gay Roberts, of Haslemere, Surrey. 
More than one-fifth of the area of Ireland consists of waste 
land. Connaught, the smallest of its provinces, contains more 
bog and waste land than any of the other three. Its total area 
is 4,233,239 acres. Of these only 460,614 acres were returned 
in 1877 as under tillage ; 2,279,636 acres being in grass, meadow, 
and clover : 54,903 acres woods and plantations, and 1491 fallow. 
The remaining 1,436,595 acres of bog and waste land remains a 
perpetual challenge to the energy and industry of man to bring it 
into cultivation, and compel it to yield crops for his benefit. An 
English agriculturist travelling through Ireland for the first time 
will ask himself the question again and again, Is it necessary that 
these vast areas of level land should remain unprofitable and 
waste? Cannot these hill-sides and moorlands be made to 
produce a better herbage, so that they may feed instead of starve 
the cattle turned out upon them ? The question is one of such 
great national importance that every practical attempt to answer 
it is of great value. During the fifteen years that Mr. Mitchell 
Henry has held the Kylemore estate, his attention has not been 
confined to questions of general interest to the country and the 
county which he represents in Parliament, but he has paid great 
attention to the wants of the poor in his immediate neighbour- 
hood, and has worked with increasing confidence at the reclama- 
tion of a considerable portion of the moor- and peat-lands in 
his possession. These experiments in cultivation aie far from 
being complete, and in many respects their success cannot yet 
be spoken of with confidence ; but they have now been con- 
tinued for a sufficient time, and extend over a sufficient area, to 
make them well worthy of the attention of British agriculturists. 
They have^ all been carried out under the superintendence of 
Mr. Archibald D. MacAlister, the resident agent, who has com- 
bined much prudence and caution with great intelligence in 
their execution. Unless much discretion is used, the intro- 
duction of innovations into many parts of Ireland is' apt to be 
attended with very serious drawbacks, but, by gradually feeling 
his way, Mr. MacAlister has been able to ascertain the best 
method of improving the condition both of the land and of the 
peasantry. Thus experience has taught him that the drains 
which he at first put in at 40-feet intervals are not sufficient for 
moorland with sucli a rainfall as prevails at Kylemore, and 
they are now being placed at half that interval. Hardly any of 
the cottages upon the estate possessed the luxury (or, as an 
