On the Culture of Waste Lands.

N your Magazine for February laft,

269

2. In very many instances, in which lands remain very much in the ftate of waftes, this is owing, either to their lying in unfavourable fituations, remote from the means of improvement, and from markets, at which the produce might be fold, or to their lying, on the contrary, in fituations on the lea-coaft, and fometimes in the vicinity of great cities, where the industry of the people is called entirely away, to be employed upon more flattering objects.

3. In other instances, lands are retained in a comparatively wate ftate, either as commons belonging to incorporations, or as chaces referved for the ainufement of great landholders. But, that proportion of the territory of the island, which is thus, of defign, kept in a fort of waste condition, is much finaller than that of which the improvement has been prevented

IN the

fenfible and well-intentioned letter on the Culture of Waste Lands, which is figned A Liverpoolian. I entirely concur in opinion with your correfpondent; that the cultivation of our waste lands is one of the most important means which remain to be employed for the improvement of the national wealth of Great Britain. Some of his facts, however, appear to me to be stated with a certain degree of incorrectness; and his principal fuggeftion I take to be rather too hattily hazarded. You will, therefore, oblige me, by having the goodnels to fubmit the following confiderations upon this interesting agricultural fubject, to him, and to your readers.

1. When we fpeak, in Great Britain, of Wafle Lands, it is not to be understood, that there is any land in the island, which, if not covered by ftagnant water, or exhibiting, at the furface, nothing but bare rock, can deferve to be regarded, as abfolutely waste. Even our morales, where thefe are not abfolutely inacceflible to cattle, yield graffes which both cows and fheep crop with remarkable avidity. Our bleakeft moors afford excellent pafture for fheep. Goats clamber among the cliffs of our highest mountains; and thefe find alpine plants which are to them peculiarly grateful. There is no land, either in Scotland or England, which has its furface at all covered with herbage, that ought not to afford at least fixpence, an acre, in the year, to the landlord, if it be favourably fituate in regard to markets, that may not yield at least half-a-crown a year, for each acre, to a skilful and industrious tenant,

4. Of all thofe obftacles, which have oppofed the cultivation of our most barren lands, the most powerful has had, and ftill has, its existence in the ignorance and the prejudices of the farmers and their labourers. Agriculture, and all the arts of husbandry, have hitherto been commonly taught, in Britain, by tradition alone. Rural economy has never yet been reduced to any thing like a fyftem of fcientific principles affording a foundation to rules by which its practice, as an art, might be regulated. In every different part of the country, the diverfities in the modes of husbandry, are, not such as the diverfity of local circumftances alone recommends, but such as accident has. introduced, in ancient times. The old Anglo-Saxon implements of the feventh and eighth centuries, are still used, alinost without improvement or variation of form, throughout the greater number of the farms in the island. The most abfurd practices of husbandry prevail, merely because they have prevailed. Too many of our farmers know no other ratio of their plans of farming, than that the fame were followed by their fathers, their grand-fathers, and their great-grandfathers. Their prejudices are in the direct proportion of their ignorance. That ground which has been once pronounced not arable, they hold aloft as religioufly facred from the plough, as the Druids of old could hold their inmost and moft myfterious groves.

5. Notwithstanding thefe powerful obftacles, very great progrefs has, at length, begun to be made in the improvement of

lands,

270

Plans for the Cultivation of Wafte Lands,

lands, which were once accounted to be invincibly barren. Multiplying population has produced a neceflity for new inclofures, new fubdivifions of fields, extended tillage. Augmented wealth, luxury becoming continually more fumptuous, tatte more juft, more capricioully fickle, more magnificent in its defigns; have, in the formation of new ornamented grounds, brought vaft tracts of territory into a ftate of rich cultivation, which were, before, barren and neglected. All thefe nieans have concurred to enlarge our domestic market for the produce of lands improved by husbandry; and of confequence, to promote their improvement. The diffufion of knowledge throughout the land, and the encreafing application of fcience to the improvement of every one of the useful arts; has alfo begun at length to lend its powerful aid towards the advancement of agriculture; and has fuggefted various means of the most effential utility, for reducing wafte grounds under profitable cultivation. For the ufe of all the arts in general, our roads and canals have been, within thefe laft thirty years, prodigiously improved, extended, multiplied: And this opening up of the country, has, in the most eminent degree, contributed to refcue all its parts from defolation. I know not, if any direct measures employed for the fertilization of our more barren lands, could have, within the fame time, fo effectually atchieved their purpofe, as have thofe natural and

indirect means here enumerated.

6. I cannot but think, that a moment's reflection would induce your enlightened correfpondent to fee the impropriety of any plan which fhould legally authorife government to purchate and then parcel out, anew, our prefent waste lands. It can never be advifeable to put into the hands of government any powers, fave thofe of providing for our immediate national defence, of maintaining public crder, by the adminiftration of diftributive juftice, of levying, under a proper fan&tion, means for the neceffary public expence, and of giving the watchword, if poffible, to the nation, in regard to whatever can promote the general welfare. Is not our own government invefted, at prefent, by the unavoidable exigency of circumftances, with, perhaps, too much power over private life and property? Is it not univerfally known, that, wherever governments have defcended into too particular an interference in the general economy of the national induttry, this economy has been always deranged and injured? Have

not nine-tenths of all the great projects of governments for the accomplishment of fudden and extenfive improvements in induftry and manners been unavoidably defeated, by difadvantages infeparable from their own nature? The plan of Brafchi, the laft of the Popes, for draining the Campagna di Roma; that of a Spanish minifter for peopling and cultivating the Siena Morena by the introduction of a German colony; that of the Scottish Trustees, forty years fince, for improving the forfeited eitates. Were not these all great fchemes, not unlike to this which is propofed by your correfpondent; and which were fruftrated chiefly by that management which became peculiar to them, as being the fchemes of minifters and of government? Let any one but enter, in imagination, into all thofe circumftances of management, which would neceffarily attend the execution of your correfpondent's project; the influence it would have upon the price of land and on faies, the partialities which might be exercifed in parcelling cut the little fields, the jealoufies which would be excited among all the candidates for the purchases, the injuries which the prefent proprietors would, in a thousand instances, fuftain, from being forced to fell, even at any. price, that which they rather defired to referve: And he will eafily be convinced, that there could be nothing much more unwife, than the adopting of fuch a plan of improvement as that proposed by your correfpendent!

7. But, how, then, profecute this improvement to its due point of perfection?

Extend, repair, multiply your roads and canals, till, by means of them, the moft diftant parts of the country fhall be brought virtually nearer together; and the mutual communication between its provinces, which are mutually the moft remote, fhall be eafy, almoft as if they were but different streets of the fame great town.

Cherifh, with particular care, thofe arts which work up for exportation the products of agriculture. Such are thofe of the brewer, the diftiller, the maker of ftarch and hair-powder, befide all our other manufactures which demand labourers, that must be fed from the produce of our cwn land.

Cultivate commerce, manufactures, and agriculture, as reciprocally conducive to one another's profperity. But, wherever the interefts of our manufactures interfere

with

Lethington Houfe.

LETHINGTON HOUSE.

272

Mr. Tuke on fowing Grafs Seeds, Sc.

ftrong land, and find it answer much better than fowing them with corn: and there is a very evident fuperiority in favour of that practice, when compared with that of fowing them with corn. The method is to fow them as early in the fpring as the land can be made fit; the tops of the weeds which may grow amongst them are mown off twice in the courfe of fummer, and the land rolled after each nowing; by autumn, if the feafon has been tolerably favourable, a rich, luxuriant pafture is produced."

Although the above method is well adapted to ftrong land, an improvement may be made upon it, by fowing along with the grafs feeds one bufhel of tares or vetches. Where this is practifed, the crops should be mown for hay as foon as the vetches are got well into flower; by this method the produce mown is rendered valuable, but in the former cafe it is of very little value, rarely worth the expence of cutting. The feeds thus having a free admiffion of air, will spread, and get ftrength fait, and the tares fpringing again, will, with the feeds, form, in a fhort time, a moft excellent pafture for fheep.

It is a fettled principle with me, that the land cannot be too rich when fown with grafs feeds; for the richer the land is, the more ftock the feeds will carry, and the stock confequently leave a larger quantity of manure, and thus increafe its fertility in almoft an arithmetical progreffion; and when the field is again ploughed out, it will be in a state to produce the more plentiful crops of corn. other hand, if land be fown down poor, it carries little ftock, remains poor as long as it lies in grafs, and when ploughed out, will fearce clear expences.

On the

It was from reafoning in this manner, that I was led to fow grafs feeds without corn; which I have done on a winter and fpring fallow limed, as well as the fame kind of fallow manured; and alfo on land well, manured, which had been cropped the preceding year with potatoes: the two laft have answered the best. My foil being a light fand, I preferred fowing fomething along with the grafs feeds, that would foon make a good fheep patture; I therefore fowed one half peck of rape feed per acre along with the grafs feeds; as loon as it got a pretty good leaf, I turned in fuch a flock of theep as I thought would eat it as faft as it grew; by which management, the rape affords a fhelter for the young feeds, and the fheep, at the fame time that they are eating the rape, and faftening the foil to the roots of the

feeds, are greatly enriching the land by the manure they leave. The laft fummer I fowed fome tares inftead of rape, at the rate of one bufhel per acre, along with the grats feeds, upon land which had been cropped with potatoes the year before; as foon as the tares had got about ancle deep, I turned in fome sheep; but I foon found it almoft impoffible to keep it down with the stock, and at this time it is as beautiful a piece of fwarth as I ever faw.

I find it the best practice, not to fow the feeds until a month or fix weeks after the last ploughing in the fore part of that time, the land fhould be manured, if neceffary, with fhort manure; and repeated opportunities taken, in dry weather, to harrow it well, and it should be once rolled; by thefe means, the weeds are deftroyed, the land gets a confiderable degree of firmnefs, the manure is well mixed with the foil, which lies within reach of the roots of the grafs, and the feeds lie at a more equal depth than when the land is fresh ploughed; if any weeds fhould af terwards appear, care fhould be taken to extirpate them.

The feeds per acre I fhould recommend to be fown on light, or loamy foils, are ten pounds of trefoil, fix pounds of white clover, four pounds of red clover, and fix buffiels of hay feeds, if the latter can be depended upon to be of good kinds, and without a mixture of any thing prejudicial; but this is rarely to be met with: for want of good hay feeds, I recommend one bufhel of rye grass; and even if hay feeds are ufed, I fhould mix one peck of rye grais with them, unless a confiderable quantity of rye grafs appears contained among them, which rarely happens.

Rve grafs, if properly managed in fpring, by being kept well eat down, is valuable grafs. JOHN TUKE.

Lingcroft (near York), 27th of 3d Month, 1798.

Mr. Gray on Substitutes for Bark.