The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-09-13 00:00:00

WASTE LAND,

Among all the branches of industry carried on in Britain,
none has ever appeared to me to be more interesting than what
relates to the cultivation of the soil. It is by that means alone
that the face of the country becomes beautified—the climate
improved—the food of man provided at home, and the national
interest more amply promoted than it can be by any other
means. Many millions of treasure have been squandered, and
many valuable lives sacrificed, to conquer or retain distant and
unwholesome colonies, or to invade or annoy those of other
states; while the twentieth part of the sums so improperly
squandered, would, if applied to the melioration of the soil in
Britain and Ireland, have tended more to render the nation
rich, powerful, and independent, than it can be made by any
other means. All the necessaries of life, and many luxuries,
can be raised from our own soil when it is duly cultivated; and,
yet, our foolish economists and mountebank politicians would
have us to abandon the improvement of inferior land, and give
away our money to foreigners, and to trust to trade and manu-
facture (both already far overdriven,) for our substance—
the most absurd and dangerous project that has ever been
broached, even in this age of political deception and frenzy.
Every person who has attained about fifty years of age, must
have seen the produce of the arable land in Britain and Ire-
land doubled, and in many instances far more than quadru-
pled, in their own lifetime; and every person who understands
husbandry, will attest, that if the same attention were to be
paid as heretofore, or such protection afforded to the cultiva-
tors as to enable them to proceed in safety with their improve-
ments, the produce of the soil might be again doubled in
twenty or thirty years. if that interesting concern were duly
attended to, it would give employment to a vast number of
people, much more congenial to their health and virtuous
habits, than any species of manufacture in which they can
find employment. Our mechanics, led astray and deceived by
the economists and party politicians, cry out against corn-bills,
restriction in commerce, &c., and wish to render the cultivators
of the soil as idle and miserable as themselves frequently are,
from staguations in their employment. But they do not con-
sider that the landed interest, the occupiers of laud, and coun-
try labourers and tradesmen, are their best, and, often, their
only customers; and, if these were all to be reduced to misery, or
their incomes greatly abridged, what would become of manufac-
turers and the mechanics they employ ? They would be reduced to
misery, even if they had grain at the one-half of its present prices.
These misguided people have been wonderfully clamorous for
two or three years past for reforms, for the whole bill, &c.., and
no doubt expected it would render them rich and happy. Poor
fellows ! they did not perceive that they were the mere dupes of the
Whigs, who were then hungering and thirsting, not after righte-
ousness, but after power and profit. The eyes of the most.
simple have now been opened as to the real character of their
deceivers, and they very honestly acknowledge that they have
been imposed on by the Whigs. But if ever the projects of the
economists, as to fiee trade in grain, and giving up the cultiva-
tion of inferior land, shall come into operation, the poor me-
chanics who are bawling for such changes would find their
disappointment still greater than in placing confidence in the
Whigs. If the cultivation of the soil were to be attended to
as it ought to be, we should neither need to bring our grain from
abroad, nor send our labouring people to cultivate the soil in the
wilds of America.

I have been induced to make, or rather to repeat, these re-
marks from my having recently surveyed a field of moss or
waste land, the property of Mr. Smellie, of Heazleden, in the
parish of Stonehou se, which he has reclaimed from sterility, and
brought, in the course of four years, to yield crops of wheat,
barley, oats, potatoes, rye and hay, all of them equal to the
best of those to be met with within the county of Lanark.
The piece of land, referred to extends to about 20 acres, lying
in about 500 feet of altitude above the level of the sea, and was
so barren that it would not have rented at 6d. per acre ' • and
now 15 acres of it are covered with the most valuable and luxu-
riant crops of grain, roots, and grasses : the remainder of the
field is under operation for next year's cropping. I have tra-
velled many hundreds of miles to see moss cultivation, and the
crops raised on that species of soil; but I have never seen more
valuable crops of grain and potatoes, on any moss whatever,
than are now growing on Mi., Smellie's moss at fleazleden.
About one acre of rye on that moss is superior to any I ever
saw in Britain, and equal to the best I have seen in Belgium
or the north of France.
•• As I did not see Mr. Smellie's improvements in their pro-
gress, I cannot go into minute particulars. A ditch or open
drain has been formed in the lowest course of the moss, to re-
ceive and carry off the surface water; the surface has been
reduced to regular form, the ridges are broad, and very little
raised in the centre, and the furrows are about a foot wide and
ten inches deep. No part of the moss has been under-drained,
or any part of it burnt. Dung has been applied to the potatoe
crop, but the chief manure has been earth or clay, mixed with
a portion of lime in a powdery state. I believe Mr. Smellie
has not kept an exact account of the expense of reclaiming this
moss and waste land; but he says he considers the crops now
upon it, and those of the three preceding seasons, on part of the
field, to have refunded his expense in reclaiming the whole. If
so, he must reap a great profit, in having brought that field
from sterility, to be worth in all time coining, if it shall be
properly managed, probably three pounds an acre of yearly rent.
r. Ssnellie is so well convinced of the advantages of his im-
provement of that piece of waste land, that he is improving, in
a similar way, a field of the same sort of land, that he holds on a
lease of twelve years or so, from Mr. Lockhart of Castlehill ; and
Mr. Smellie's other improvements on arable but rather poor land,
are not equalled by those of any other proprietor of his rank in
the county of Lanark. I-I e generally furrow-drains from twenty
to thirty acres of land every year. lam confident that if his
improvements were properly represented to the Highland So-
ciety, that patriotic body would honour him with some mark of
their approbation. If every proprietor of land were to follow
the example Mr. Smellie has set them, our deserts would soon
be iurued into fruitful fields. WILL. AITON.

EXTENSIVE SEIZURE OF CONTRAUAND GOODS IN THE. RIVER
THAMES.—An extensive seizure of smuggled silks was made
last week iu the river, under very extraordinary circumstances.
It appears that on Tuesday Mr. Chivers, tide-surveyor of cus-
toms, went on board the Good Intent, a regular Dover trader,
Thos. Allen, master, lying alongside Chester's Quay, Lower
Thames-street, which had discharged her cargo on the previous
day, for the purpose of clearing her, and after rummaging the
vessel about, where he saw nothing suspicious, had actually
made out the clearing note, when two of his waterruen, named
William John Grace •and John Pound, happening to prick
through the ballast in the ship's hold, felt something hard.
The suspicions of the officers were immediately aroused, and on
removing the ballast they discovered 32 bales of French silk,
and 37 cartoons of silk ribands. On farther search they disco-
vered five pieces of foreign manufactured silk under the captain
and mate's bed-places in the cabin. The goods, which have
been valued at upwards of £4OOO, were sent to the King's ware-
house; and the ship, which has become forfeited, and with her
stores valued at £lOOO more, was sent to the " condemned hole"
on Friday. It has been ascertained that after the ship had dis-
charged a cargo at Dover she proceeded to France, where the
silks were taken, and returned to Dover, where she was freighted
with a general cargo, and proceeded to London with the imen-
tiuu of lauding the silks after she was cleared.