Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/73

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As to the Cultivation of Waste Land in Ireland, and its effect on Emigration. (See supra, p. 27.)

In 1841 the land of Ireland was thus distributed:— The 6,295,735 acres of uncultivated land were frequently referred to in the evidence before the Land Occupation Commissioners, and in their report.

In consequence of the extensive drainage works carried on to give relief at the time of the famine, and in consequence of the number of mountain and bog roads, made at that time under the public works and under private proprietors for the purpose of giving employment, a great deal of land was brought within the limits of profitable cultivation between 1841 and 1851. It was accordingly reported by the Census Commissioners in 1851, that the arable land of Ireland had increased from 13,464,300 acres in 1841, to 14,802,581 in 1851, showing an increase of 1,338,281 acres. The waste land had diminished from 6,295,735 acres in 1841, to 5,023,984 acres in 1851, showing a decrease of 1,271,751 acres. There was also a diminution of about 70,000 acres of plantation, converted into arable land.

Sir Richard Griffith reported in 1844, that 1,425,000 acres were improvable for cultivation, and 2,330,000 were improvable for pasture, making a total of 3,755,000 acres improvable.

As the drainage and making of roads consequent on the famine were all executed after 1844, it follows that the greater part of the 1,271,751 acres reclaimed between 1841 and 1851, were reclaimed between 1844 and 1851, and yet this period of the most rapid reclamation of waste land in Ireland that probably ever took place, was followed by the largest emigration, showing how little the improvement of waste land in Ireland, the greater part of which, according to Sir Richard Griffith, is improvable only for pasture, (and which when improved has in fact been principally devoted to pasture) can be relied on as an important means of checking emigration, when it arises from comparatively low wages and inadequate means of living in Ireland.

Since 1851 the reclamation of waste land seems to have gone