No man at all acquainted with the principles of fertility and the
present state of British tillage, can for a moment doubt that a very
large quantity of waste land is scattered over the different districts
of this country, which is not only susceptible of improvement, but which
would yield an ample return for any amount of labour which could, for
centuries to come, be spared from the cultivation of our own land. To be
fully convinced of this fact, no man need do more than ride twenty miles
in any direction from the metropolis. Let him select whatever road he
may choose for his excursion, and he will find tracts of land, forming
in the aggregate a very considerable quantity, which at this moment
remain in the hands of nature--which man has never made the slightest
effort to reclaim. Even the hebdomadal excursions of the citizen will
conduct him over or near many such scenes. What Gilpin, living within
the sound of Bow-bells, does not know Epping and Hainault Forests,
Hounslow, Putney, and Black Heaths, Brook Green, Turnham Green,
Wandsworth, Esher, Sydenham, Hays, and various other Commons? Within a
circle of twenty miles around the largest and most opulent city in the
world, we thus discover a large quantity of land, which cultivation
would render highly productive, but which, in its present state of
waste, is of little or no value to the public. And this land, situated
in the very outskirts of the metropolis, continues to be utterly
neglected, if not entirely overlooked, at a moment when the whole
kingdom resounds with the groans of those who argue that the population
of this country has outrun the means of subsisting them. As the
traveller advances in his journey from the metropolis, the waste becomes
more extensive, if not more numerous. The English wastes, which amount
to about five millions of acres, are more valuable than those of
Ireland; and these again are more improvable than, the Scotish
wastes.--_Quarterly Rev._