“It may be regarded as a circumstance favourable to the introduction of a poor-law, that so much land is lying waste and uncultivated in Ireland. Much of this land is susceptible of cultivation, and the order and security which a poor-law would tend to establish, will encourage the application of capital to such objects. If capital were to be so applied, considerable tracts would be brought under culture, and thus afford occupation to the now unemployed labourers. Most of the reclaimed bog which I saw in the western counties, was effected by the small occupiers, who partially drained and enclosed an acre or two at a time; but such operations were without system or combination, and for the most part indifferently performed. In this way, however, the reclamation of these wastes will of necessity proceed—constantly adding to the number of small cottier tenants, and swelling the amount of poverty and wretchedness in the country—unless proprietors and capitalists shall be induced to take the matter in hand, and by enclosing and effectually draining whole tracts, secure the means of applying economical management on a large scale. The enclosing and draining, and the whole process of reclamation, would afford employment to labourers who are now, for a great portion of the year, idling about without occupation; and when the land so reclaimed becomes subjected to a regular process of cultivation, it will continue to afford them regular employment at daily wages, instead of the often miserably insufficient produce of their own small holdings, to which they now are compelled to cling as their sole means of support.