LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
RECLAMATION OF WASTE LAND IN IRELAND.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR:1 S111,—There is one point with regard to Mr. J. G. AfacCarthy's Bill to enable the State to buy up and reclaim waste lands in Ireland which is usually- overlooked by those who have not practical experience in the reclamation of waste land, but which is yet of the utmost consequence. The point is, what is the value of the land when the reclamation is done, relatively to its cost? By the reclamation being done, I mean when the land has been made ready for cultivation and manuring. But the extra manures, as lime and others, needful, in consequence of the land having before been waste, and the often bad crops for some years, arising from the same cause, also require to be taken into account.
For thirty-five years I have been occupied in reclaiming waste and half-waste land in Ireland, laying out many hundred pounds yearly on it. I have thus drained all the wet land on a property of near 4,000 acres, and have reclaimed nearly all the waste ex- cept one bog, on which turf is still cut. I have reclaimed dry waste that only needed to be torn up with a large four-horse plough, costing perhaps 20s. per acre ; and much more wet waste, that cost up to 120 per acre. Some has paid for the expenditure in two or three crops, and caused land that was valued when wet at is. per acre to be eagerly hired at 12, and to be well worth it. Much land does not pay two per cent. on the cost of reclamation, -and I have had every sort of intermediate profit between these extremes. I have reclaimed for tenants, charging them five per .cent. on the outlay; and much more of the land I have taken into my own bands, and treated it after reclamation in the best way. I have had some advantages. I knew something of such work myself, and have gradually got much experience.
Farming largely, I had a capital Scotch bailiff to superintend the reclamation, at no extra cost, and many trained labourers in constant work. A few extra horses kept on the farm helped farm work at busy times, and at slack times enabled the whole force of farm horses to be used economically on the reclamations. I have constantly attended to the work myself, with a strict eye to its business results.
In waste land there is just as great difference in the quality of the soil as there is in ordinary farm land. As a minute's thought would show was likely, most of the waste capable of being made good land has been long since reclaimed somehow. The propor- tion of inferior waste land, therefore, greatly predominates, and much is very poor. So, too, the cost of reclaiming waste differs greatly. There is a little, but not much, that can be reclaimed cheaply, and which, therefore, is sure to pay. Far the larger proportion of waste requires large outlay in reclamation, and without real skill and knowledge of the business cannot be made to pay a moderate interest on the cost. Deep peat can very seldom be reclaimed to a profit. It can only be done with a profit where exceptional advantages exist for covering the surface with clay or gravel every few years. It is just like a West Norfolk sand, without the advantage of the clay subsoil, which has made it possible for farmers there to turn rabbit-warrens into good land at a profit. Much waste in Ireland is cut-out bog. The subsoil is the poorest white clay, forming the saucers which retained the water, and enabled the peat to grow. In my district most of this clay subsoil has a stratum of stones in it near the surface, in places water-worn, in others angular, often jammed together with great tightness in great quantity, so that there is no choice but to dig over the whole surface with crowbars, in which many hundreds of loads of stones per acre are often raised. This is what is known to geologists as the northern drift. There are no doubt parts where there is surface-soil enough over the stones, and the stones help for drains and fences. But usually there is a great superfluity, and the cost of clearing stones off the surface is considerable.
I could never drain land, in the cheapest times for labour, before and after the famine, for less than /5 to 16 per acre. Now, in consequence of better wages and leas inclination to take task-work, it costs 17 to 18 per acre, and sometimes 19 to /10. Digging out the stones never costs less than /8 per acre, and often double. Levelling the surface in other parts is often expensive, sometimes very, where carting is necessary or the bog is soft ; but the cost varies. So fencing will cost El to 13 per acre, and in more than one case a cost of 1,5 per acre has had to be incurred in cutting an out-fall from the bog, where the extent of land de- pending on the out-fall has not been large, or the outfall has been long. I have never made up my accounts on the principle of the average cost per acre, and I could not now sufficiently identify quantities to enable me to do so. But I believe £15 per acre would not cover the average cost of all the land I have reclaimed.
The present Irish tenants are quite incapable of treating land that has been reclaimed as it requires to be treated, except in small quantities of a very few scree. They have not the strong, well-fed horses that can alone plough rough land, nor the know- ledge necessary for dealing with such land. Half -a-dozen acre* of rough land upsets their ideas and system of cropping. Very few ever get through it. None do so, except so gradually as to make the payment of interest on the cost of reclamation a serious loss to them for years. I have more than one case of tenants paying the interest on the cost of reclamation, and letting the land lie afterwards as useless as ever. For many years, whenever the reclamation was of more than a patch of a few acres, I have had for the sake of the tenant to take the land into my own hands and keep it for good treatment. I have even ploughed it for them in vain ; the work is beyond them.
Of course, it will be said, my experience is only of one district, which is quite true. But as far as my knowledge of Ireland goes, my district is more favourable than most parts, and it is only here and there in the fine lands in a few favoured parts that better results can be found.
I think the off-hand way in which some talk about reclaiming waste land, as if it was a thing as easy as eating bread and cheese, arises merely from ignorance. They are talking of that about which they know nothing practically. Neither landlords nor tenants in Ireland are usually thought to be deficient in love of gain. If the gain from reclamation was so easy and so great, many on the spot would be keen to make it.
With skill and capital it can be done at a very moderate profit only. The landowner has the beat security for his outlay, his own land. To him the risk is only that of making a small profit instead of a large one, provided only the work is well done, and he puts his land in a progressive state, that is sure to make it of greater value to his family in long-after years. It is, therefore, well worth his while to do it.
The cost of reclamation is now 50 per cent. higher than it was when the bulk of my work was done. No doubt the price of produce, especially grass produce, has risen as much or more. But the habits, and knowledge, and skill of Irish tenants have improved very little, and without knowledge, and skill, and capital no one can make newly reclaimed land, at present cost, pay the interest on that cost. Those who are doing it at this moment are nearly all landowners.
Whenever the State is able to conduct with profit ordinary com- mercial or manufacturing business in competition with the self- interest of private men, it may succed in reclaiming waste land in Ireland under such a Bill as this, and selling or letting it afterwards, without loss. Until that day arrives, whether the Bill passes or not, it will never work. The proposal to build dwellings and farm offices besides on the reclaimed lands shows the entire absence of practical knowledge on the subject in the authors of the Bill.
If any one will go through in detail a farm in England or Ireland, in fairly good condition, and rqckon what must have been the cost to some one of all the buildings, fences, gates, drains, roads, and any other improvements upon it, he will be surprised to find how large a part they form of the value of the fee-simple of the farm. If the farm had been waste, to begin with, and all these improvements had to be done by capital at once, it would be a clear case of damnosa htereditas.
When will it be understood that the management of land, whether by the owner or occupier, is a business, and nothing else, subject to all the conditions of any other business, and some risks (e.g., those of season), peculiar to itself ?—I am, Sir, &c.,
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