simply appalling. It is true that treeless, houseless, tenantless, unstocked tracts, are to be dealt with. But on the other hand, how many acres of waste obtain a value from one acre reclaimed, both as summering ground, and as a source of manure to the cultivated area?

This was the process of English cultivation before enclosures, and whilst whole districts now under the plough were being gradually taken out of nature's own hands. Not many years ago, land used to be laid to farms of which no account was taken in the lease, and only began to figure in the rent-roll as soon as it appeared that capital could be profitably applied to it.

Besides, the Law Life Assurance have other arrows in their quiver, other resources, both seaward and inland, which, in great variety and extent, wait their good time to be economically developed. Blest with fivefold increase, since incorporation,—at least

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opinion, tested by price, awards them that amount of success-let them, as capitalists, do the great work which only capitalists can effectually perform ;-let them only break ground manfully, other capitalists wait but to be certain of good neighbourhood to flock there; let them in right earnest show their intention of becoming the powerful, liberal, and spirited neighbour, under whose eye lawful callings are to thrive, and the true interests of the people placed unmistakably before them, to the utter extinction of the make-shift, grovelling system of past days.

I would beg their attention to vol. i. page 681, of the digest of evidence on the occupation of land in Ireland, in 1830; and if Mr. Williams's authority is worthy, I would have it laid to heart. "Then expenditure of 160,0007. in public works in Connaught, in seven years, produced an increase in the annual revenue equal to the whole expenditure." A result which must secure all the

encouragement from governments and grand juries, however composed, that capitalists may require. In their case the revenue would be the recipient of a per-centage only of the return; ample margin would remain for profit, after "not so very many days,” to a landlord as long-lived as spirited, and last, not least, as patient as a rich Corporation. can afford to be. The company would not work single-handed.

We live under a reign which, through the bright example of the first lady of the age, brings many of the humanising and elevating influences of our better nature into beneficent and philanthropic action. If the illdisposed do occasionally conspire, it cannot be said that the well-disposed do not unite. The first step taken in the right direction, even over ground as treacherous as flat or red bog (they are synonymous) can be, will bring society after society to the rescue.

Improvers may calculate on other funds

than their own for founding schools, charities, and churches. This is eminently, in Protestant England, a church-building century, and if, during the first half of it, the requirements of the age had called for cathedral structures, such as the world never yet saw might have been perfected. But happily the age is also a practical one, not given to waste either its funds or its energies on what would now be a vain-glorious anachronism, and the munificence of the nation has, with less of ostentation and far better results, been directed to the multiplication and accommodation of detached congregations. May I live to see such springing up and flourishing throughout the Irish Highlands!

CHAPTER XVII.

RECLAIMING BOGS.-HISTORY OF THE POTATO.-LIME.- LANDMEASURE.

To pay even a morning visit to Connemara, particularly when the line taken to arrive there passes over the Bog of Allen, and not devote a chapter to black and red, or flat bogs, and potatoes, would be like visiting Iceland without dilating on the Geysers, or editing an "Almanach des Gourmands," without at least a chapter on young peas.

It would be easy to place, side by side, in half columns (in the form in which the Mirror of Parliament is occasionally made to reflect the varying phases of a public life for the edification of the world), a string of