tection which has ever characterised the liberality of the Society; and that I shall feel highly honoured, if they couceive what I have communicated deserving any mark of their favour. I am, Gentlemen, Your most obedient humble servant, IV. On Reclaiming Waste Lands. By Mr. WAGSTAFFE *. GENTLEMEN, Norwich, June 27, 1801. As your influence for the enclosure of Waste Land is Waste land confessed, and, I conceive, extending within the scope of your Society, and it should now seem on the eve of a Parliamentary encouragement; I ask leave to recite an experiment I made on a portion of land, of as obvious fterility as perhaps any present waste within the Western counties. This was an acclivity, which had not been cultivated described. within memory; and at the foot of it a various tract, gravelly and moory, broken into hollow spaces, in which waters rested during the summer months, which waters were covered with most of the aquatic plants native to stagnant pools. My predecessor in possession of these watery wastes, during a summer drought, fed their interstices with sheep, which became diseased, and many of them rotten. The mode I pursued was as much as might be to extract Steps taken to the weeds, roots, and sediment; lay them in heaps as a improve it. preparation of manure measurably to replace and fertilize the barren sands and gravel, brought from the heights to fill up these hollows. I then opened ditches, raised their sides with sand and gravel, and on them planted large cuttings of poplars and willows. The ditching drained the soil, and the materials from the heights raised this swamp Bath Papers, vol. X, p. 18. Fence. The process applicable to great extent, Timber. Different pop lars. to the proper condition of meadow. The upland I en closed with thorns on a willow ley*, and within the banks inlaid them with seedling trees and forest; divers of the former have been taken down for use, and some of the aquatic cuttings are grown to a timber measure; while the several subdivisions, meadow and upland, have been cultivated, and borne every species of grain and herbage, confessedly upon an equality with the long tillaged circumjacent fields. By a process thus pursued, of which I have presumed to adduce this example, the numerous millions of wastę acres, which yet disfigure our nation, may and will become, the seasons favouring, under your and your compatriots' encouragement, a widely extended garden, replete with every useful production congenial to our climate; and the boundary of its fields fenced with faster thriving trees, and more abundant in number than the present large tracts of forest produce, provide for generations yet to come an increase of those necessary timbers, that have given this island an intercourse with the inhabitants of every maritime clime, and an acknowledged superiority in the commercial world, which probably it would not have obtained but from the indigenous growth of these not sufficiently valued timbers. Although your extended encouragements have much increased them by multiplied plantations, yet their growth may be indefinitely enlarged by an encouragement for their acorn seed to be placed in every raised bank, or their seedlings planted in every new formed hedge-row; which most efficaciously might be enforced by Parliament as a conditional obligation on all to whoin they are assigned, under the statute of a national enclosure. But as every seminary of oaks must be referable to a distant posterity, it becomes worthy of every present planter in the interior of his hedge-rows to have large cuttings of poplar* and willow, * A willow fence in this situation has the appearance of improbability, but it is yet improving. + Of poplars, the nigra, alba, and hybridum; this latter hath not, I conceive, found its way into any systematical arrangement of plants, and in course has not received any specific character. The name as willow*, and an intermixture with young trees of the resinous tribe. Those I have already known may be taken down as timber during the life of the planter, and as early as the inlays are grown to afford shelter and shade to the herd and the flock, that occasionally feed within their enclosures. I may just add, the fall of the autumnal leaf, with the manure of the depasturing cattle, may continue the fertility not unsuited to of these fields without extraneous aid; and where not rea- The soil of va◄ dily procurable, I may farther add, that in the latter end of rious wastes the autumn of 1799 I procured turves from different wastes, grain. reserved them on a gravel walk, and thereon dibbled wheat, almost every grain of which succeeded, branched into divers stems, which severally bore a full and perfect grain. In the autumn of 1800† I repeated the trial, which at this instant is as promising as the other proved. The early spring of this year, 1801, I practised the same mode with tares, pease, oats, and barley, which severally are promising. I bring forward these experiments to show, that generally every waste may be rendered productive by the first simple. operation of the plough, and thereby supersede the long process pursued by many; call forth to the earliest production the unprofitable wastes of the kingdom; and hence, as far as human foresight can discover, prevent such a sensible signed it is on the opinion of a gentleman well acquainted with botanic distinction, who conceives it to be a variety, perhaps of the two former. I may speak from an enlarging experience, that it is a handsome and fast growing tree, multiplies itself distinctly from its roots, while its cuttings take with nearly equal facility as the two former. * Pendandria, (laurel leaved) amygdalina, (almond leaf) alba, (com- Willows for mon gray leaf.) These three species I know, or presume, on the pro timber. gress the first has already made, will severally grow to a timber bulk. The prospective diversity of contrasted foliage can perhaps be not better exemplified than in the vivid green of the laurel willow, and the hoary leaf of the white poplar. + There is an average of four large ears to every grain dibbled, now in full flower, which conveys an expectation of more than a hundred fold increase, the actual increase of the preceding year. These turves or flags have received no aid from manure, or any artificial watering. VOL. XXIII-JUNE, 1809. H scarcity scarcity as most of our provinces have recently felt. And again, under the blessing of Providence, witness a competency for ourselves, and a surplus for other nations; and thence be commercially beneficial to a large portion of mankind. I am, with sincere regard, Your respectful friend, JOHN WAGSTAFFE. Waste. land. General state. First drained. V. Account of Waste Land improved by J. BUTLER, Esq. of SIR, IN the year 1802 I purchased an estate, situate in the parish of Bramshott, in the county of Hants, of which seventy acres and upwards were then waste lands, growing a little timber, furze, and alder, and supporting a few cows in the summer, but never cultivated or considered worth that expense. From particular engagements at the time, I did not begin any improvement till 1804, when I found sixty-five acres and a half (statute) of the said waste lands in the following state: twelve acres, the site of old fish ponds, growing nothing but reeds and rubbish; eighteen acres one rood thirty-seven perches, affording a little sour grass and a few alders in wet places; twenty-seven acres three roods one perch, quite a morass or bog, with a few alders; and seven acres one rood four perches of very indifferent furze. As the greatest part of the waste was filled with inaumerable springs that deluged the whole, and caused the bog to be saturated throughout the year, I considered that * Trans. of the Soc. of Arts, vol. XXVI, p. 117. The silver medal of the society was voted to Mr. Butler, draining |