The board looked upon the enclosure and cultivation of waste lands, which in England they estimated at 6,000,000 acres,[508] as a panacea for the prevailing distress, and after much opposition they managed to pass through both Houses in 1801 a Bill cheapening and facilitating the process of parliamentary enclosure. This Act, 41 Geo. III, c. 109, 'extracted a number of clauses from various private Acts and enacted that they should hold good in all cases where the special Act did not expressly provide to the contrary.' Another benefit rendered to agriculture was the establishment in 1803 of lectures on agricultural chemistry, the first lecturer engaged being Mr., afterwards Sir Humphry, Davy, who may be regarded as the father of agricultural chemistry. In 1806 Sinclair was re-elected president, and his second term was mainly devoted to completing the agricultural surveys of the different counties, which, before his retirement in 1813, he had with one or two exceptions the satisfaction of seeing finished. Though over-impetuous, he rendered valuable service to agriculture, not only by his own energy but by stirring up energy in others; as William Wilberforce the philanthrophist said, 'I have myself seen collected in that small room several of the noblemen and gentlemen of the greatest properties in the British Isles, all of them catching and cultivating an agricultural spirit, and going forth to spend in the employment of labourers, and I hope in the improvement of land, immense sums which might otherwise have been lavished on hounds and horses, or squandered on theatricals.' Among the numerous subjects into which the board inquired was the divining rod for finding water, which was tested in Hyde Park in 1801, and successfully stood the test. In 1805, Davy the chemist reported on a substance in South America called 'guana', which he had analysed and found to contain one-third of ammoniacal salt with other salts and carbon, but its use was not to come for another generation. From the time of Sinclair's retirement in 1813 the board declined. Arthur Young, its secretary, had become blind and his capacity therefore impaired. One year its lack of energy was shown by the return of L2,000 of the Government grant to the Treasury because it had nothing to spend it on. The Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, was against it, the clergy feared the commutation of tithe which the board advocated, the legal profession was against the Enclosure Act, the landed interest thought the surveys were intended for purposes of taxation; and the grant being withdrawn, an effort to maintain the board by voluntary subscription failed, so that it dissolved in 1822, after doing much valuable work for English agriculture.