It should be observed here that, in all these crown grants, the patentees were charged crown rents only for the _arable_ lands conveyed by their title-deeds, bogs, wastes, mountain, and unreclaimed lands of every description being thrown in gratuitously; amounting probably to ten or fifteen times the quantity of demised ground set down in acres. Lord Lurgan's agent, Mr. Hancock, at the commencement of his evidence before the Devon Commission, stated that 'Lord Lurgan is owner of about 24,600 acres, with a population of 23,800, under the census of 1841'--that is, by means of original reclamation, drainage, and other works of agricultural improvement, Mr. Brownlow's 2,500 acres of the year 1619, had silently grown up to 24,600 acres, and his hundred swordsmen, or pikemen, the representatives of 57 families, with a few subordinates, had multiplied to 23,800 souls. Now Mr. Hancock founds the tenant-right custom upon the fact that few, if any, of the 'patentees were wealthy;' we may therefore fairly presume that the _settlers built their own houses, and made their own improvements at their own expense_, contrary to the English practice.' As the population increased, and 'arable' land became valuable, bogs, wastes, and barren land were gradually reclaimed and cultivated, through the hard labour and at the cost of the occupying tenantry, until the possessions of his descendants have spread over ten times the area nominally demised by the crown to their progenitor. This process went on all over the province. Sixteen years passed away, and in the opinion of the Government the London companies and the Irish Society, instead of reforming as Irish planters, went on from bad to worse. Accordingly, in 1631, Charles I. found it necessary to bring them into the Star Chamber. In a letter to the lords justices he said:--