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VII. — On Reclaiming Heath Land. By John Watson, jun.. 
Land Asent, Kendal, Westmoreland. 
Prize Essay. 
The subject of reclaiming " heath land," or, what is generally 
termed in the North of England "lingy land," has claimed the 
attention of our Society : and, when its importance has been consi- 
dered in connexion with other branches of agricultural improve- 
ment, as well as being the first transition of the land from its pri- 
mitive state, I think it will be at once admitted by all who are 
anxious for the advancement of our native agriculture to require 
especial care in the performance, in order to be done economically, 
and without temporary or permanent injury to the land. 
It is true that immense tracts of heath land have been reclaimed 
within the last eighty or ninety years, a great quantity of which 
has been notoriously mismanaged, chiefly arising from an utter 
disregard to anything beyond an immediate profit ; and that, in 
consequence, only a small proportion* of the land in this country 
remains in its original state ; yet we still have in England and 
Wales upwards of seven millions of acres of unreclaimed wastes 
and heath-growing land, affording a poor and scanty supply of 
pasturage to numerous herds of dwarfis-h cattle and sheep, the 
growth and development of which are much stunted from the 
coarseness of their food in particalar, and from various other 
causes incident to lands in a wild, barren, and unreclaimed 
slate : and yet it is no uncommon thing to hear agriculturists scout 
the idea of reclaiming such lands, and point to some others for 
examples of the ill effects produced by such a course, overlooking, 
as such people mostly do, the glaring facts that have brought about 
such a state of permanent injury. 
With reference to those which have yet to be reclaimed, it is to 
be hoped that greater attention will be paid to permanent benefit 
than to immediate profit. By the judicious and skilful reclaiming 
of such, with ordinary attention to after-cultivation, the evils already 
noticed may be controlled and avoided; the produce may be dou- 
bled and trebled both in quantity and quality ; and, what is of 
the utmost importance to this country, a great additional breadth 
of land might be profitably cultivated for the growth of grain, in 
order to meet the demands of a rapidly augmenting! population. 
* About one-fifth part. 
t The rapid strides which agriculturists in general are making in the 
improvement of the land, and the steadily increasing amount of produce 
