It may be asked, why are these examples not followed? and doubts have been thrown out as to the accuracy of the statements of the able inquirers who have reported on the Irish waste lands, because they are not actually reclaimed. One simple reason has been stated by Lord Cloncurry, viz., that "arterial drainage on a large scale is indispensable as a commencement, cutting through many properties, deepening river-beds, perhaps to a considerable distance. Hence government alone can set on foot such undertakings on that comprehensive scale, and with that engineering skill, which is necessary."[5] But a more general answer will suggest itself to any one who knows the general habits and circumstances of the great Irish proprietors. Many of them have not the habits of life or the knowledge which would enable them to superintend or judge of such improvements; and many more have not the means of encountering even the small expense which will be requisite in their commencement. Further, it is always to be observed, that, in the present state of the country, another mode of greatly and rapidly improving the value of their estates, without any such outlay either of skill or capital, always presents itself to the Irish proprietors--viz., that of clearing their estates of the cottar population, and throwing them into large farms, to be cultivated in the improved English or Scotch style of agriculture--or even into pasture; the objection to which is simply that, in that case, they would not require for their cultivation more than a third part of the population now located on them, and, therefore, that this is a system relieving the landlords only, and greatly aggravating all the evils which make the management of Ireland an object of concern to the nation at large. [5] MR SCROPE'S _Letter_ in the _Morning Chronicle_, April 26, 1848.