and the third for commencing without delay the reclamation of the waste lands.  This last he considered as of the most pressing urgency.  Strange enough, that since Mr. Scrope wrote, laws have been passed on the two former subjects, whilst the one considered by him the most necessary, still remains unlegislated on.  His great object was, he said, to create employment, and to create it in the production of food, if possible.  Surely, says Mr. Scrope, if this can be created for the people at home, it is much better, for a thousand reasons, than to attempt to find it for them in America.  “I cannot refrain,” he writes, “from expressing astonishment at the degree to which the almost inexhaustible resources offered by the waste lands of Ireland for the production of employment of the wretched and unwillingly idle labourers of that country, have been overlooked and neglected, no less by statesmen than individual proprietors."[255]

From whatever cause, Irish landowners did not, to any considerable extent, take up, in earnest, the question of the reclamation of waste lands.  Roused by the pressure of the times and the impending poor-rate, the majority of them looked, says Mr. Scrope, “for salvation” to other means—­to the eviction of their numerous tenantry—­the clearing of their estates from the seemingly superfluous population by emigration or ejectment.  “Yet,” he continues, “nothing can be more true or more capable of demonstration than the assertion that there is no real redundancy of population in Ireland.  Nay, that even in the most distressed and apparently overcrowded districts, a wise and prudent management of their natural resources might find profitable employment for all, to the great advantage of the proprietors themselves, and the still greater benefit of the people and the public, which is so deeply interested in the result."[256]

The readers of these pages cannot forget that Mayo suffered as much as, if not more than, any other county, during the Famine; yet here was the state of its surface at the time of that dreadful visitation:  entire area of the County Mayo, 1,300,000 acres; of these only 500,000 acres were under cultivation, 800,000 acres being unreclaimed; of which 800,000 acres, Griffith says, nearly 500,000 could be reclaimed with profit;—­that is, just half the county was cultivated.  The Dean of Killala gave the following evidence about the same county before the Devon Commission:  Quest. 73.  “Is there sufficient employment for the people in the cultivation of the arable land?” Answ. “No; it does not employ them half the year.” Quest. 74.  “But there would be employment for them in reclaiming the waste?” Answ. “Yes; more than ample, if there was encouragement given.  Where I reside there are many thousands of acres waste, because it would not be let at a moderate rent.” Quest. 75.  “Is the land with you termed waste, capable of being made productive?” Answ. “Yes; every acre of it.”