The area of Ireland is 20,808,271 statute acres.  Of these it is commonly admitted that 18,600,000, or thereabouts, are susceptible of cultivation.  In 1845, somewhat over 13,000,000 of acres were in cultivation, whilst nearly 5,000,000, which could be brought under culture, lay barren.  Referring to the estimate of those writers who held that Ireland contained 4,600,000 acres of waste, which could be made arable, Dr. Kane said he did not think the estimate too high; and this opinion was quoted approvingly by Lord John Russell.[253]

But the question might still remain,—­could those four and a-half millions of acres he profitably cultivated?  Would their cultivation give remunerative interest on the capital expended?  That is the purely commercial view of the matter; but there is another which should not be overlooked:  Would it not be wise policy to increase the resources of a country,—­to increase its area of cultivation,—­to extend the means of employing and feeding its population, even though the work did not actually make a very remunerative commercial return?  English capital has gone to make canals and railroads and harbours, and open mines for the antipodes, often with little or no return; not unfrequently with total loss; surely as much risk ought to be taken for home improvements, in which patriotism should come to the aid of commercial enterprise.  The Chinese have, after their own fashion, devoted themselves to this kind of improvement for centuries; so have the enlightened Dutch, the most recent example of which is that noble engineering achievement, the draining of the lake of Haarlem; and although the sale of the drained land did not recoup the Government for the outlay, yet they felt the work was a great national benefit, inasmuch as it added forty-three thousand acres to the arable soil of Holland.  So pleased indeed are they with the result, that they have at present under consideration another undertaking of the same kind, and of far greater extent, namely, the draining of the Zuider Zee.

It would seem, then, to be a question well worthy the consideration of statesmen, whether or not, in the reclamation of wastes, it would be the true and enlightened policy to act upon the commercial idea alone.

Mr. Fagan, a commercial man of sound practical ability, who sat in the House of Commons for the County Wexford, put forward, in the famine period, a scheme for the reclamation of the waste lands.[254] It was mainly based upon the principle, that the men whose labour reclaimed those lands should have a beneficial interest in them.  The wealth—­the capital of the poor man, he said, lie in the health and strength with which God has endowed him, and if he be denied the means of employing this capital profitably, what matters it to him that the harvest is bountiful—­that the corn stores are full?  Mr. Fagan discusses several plans according to which Irish waste lands might be reclaimed. 1.  Individual exertion.