ortion of the bog being burned for that purpose."

With regard to deep bogs, his testimony was as follows:

"The expense of reclaiming deep bogs per acre may be estimated
thus:--Drainage of an English acre, in the most perfect way, about L1
4s., which is about 40s. the Irish acre; that includes the under drain:
the levelling and digging comes to about L1 10s.; and afterwards the
claying comes to about L6 12s. per statute acre."

Finally, he said:

"The reclamation of mountain land is very profitable, and easily
effected; but the reclamation of deep bog land is attended with a much
greater expense, and requires both care and judgment. But both are
certainly reclaimable, and would give a successful return when
judiciously treated."

Mr. Featherstone, a practical and successful farmer, told the Committee
that he had reclaimed the worst sort of bog land for L13 an acre, and
some cushbog land for, L6 an acre: the former, when reclaimed, was worth
L1 an acre, and the latter L2 an acre. "It took me," he said, "L13 an
acre to reclaim the first red bog I tried my hand on: and it would take
to reclaim, on the average, the red bog of Ireland, L10 an acre."

The soundness of the views put forward by Sir Richard Griffith and Mr.
Featherstone is proved by the reclamation of similar wastes in England.
With regard to Chat-moss, on the Liverpool and Manchester railway, Mr.
Baines writes from Barton Grange, in Lancashire, which he calls "a house
standing in the midst of a tract of 2,000 acres of peat moss, within a
few years past as wet and barren as any morass in Ireland, but now
covered with luxuriant crops." He averages the sum expended in
reclaiming the Lancashire mosses at L10 an acre, _all spent in_ manual
labour.[259] One thousand acres of Rawcliffe-moss in Lancashire was
reclaimed for L9,000, although high wages were paid to the labourers. It
pays, says Mr. Scrope, ten per cent. on the outlay, and now gives
constant employment to seventy labourers. In Ireland, he adds, private
enterprise cannot do such work. There is no capital. With regard to
reclamations made on the estate of Sir Charles Styles, in the county
Donegal, Captain Kennedy, the manager, testified before the Devon
Commission that the original cost of reclamation was refunded in three
years. And he further expressed his conviction that an outlay of L5 an
acre would pay ten per cent. on those lands.

What grave mysterious reasons of State, then, have prevented th