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the year before the termination should be reserved in every lease. Cottier tenants should never be permitted to alienate without a permission from their landlord. From a want of this clause, or indolence in enforcing it, many bad and turbulent characters have been introduced into a peaceable country. I should be very cautious in advising restrictions on the mode of cropping, but really the ruinous practice of taking successive corn crops without any kind of manure or green crop, has arrived to such a pitch, that a restriction becomes necessary for the interest of both landlord and tenant; also that they should be obliged to sow clover and grass seeds with every spring corn crop. No one practice would elevate the agriculture of Ireland from its degraded state more than this, considered either as to its immediate effects on the land, or as furnishing the means of future improvement by the feeding of immense numbers of stock, without which, improvement is nearly impossible. This system could be greatly assisted by the use of ashes of clay, the material for which every farm furnishes; but what can be expected from poor tenants, when rich proprietors do not set the example?

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A most extraordinary and oppressive power is claimed by some landlords near Ballinasloe, of turning in cattle and sheep on the 29th of September, into ground he has let, at perhaps a very high rent, for corn acres. I have seen cattle and sheep intended for the fair of Ballinasloe on the 5th of October, turned into potatoes, which were unfit to dig at that season, and were very much injured by the treading of the cattle in wet weather.

• It must be understood here that Corn acre, vulgarly called Con acre, means land let for one or two crops;-it is not confined to that let for corn, but includes potatoes or any other crop.

SECTION IV.

TAXES OR CESSES PAID BY TENANTS.

THE taxes are, a cess, generally called public money, for repairing roads and various other purposes, fluctuating almost every year from five to ten pence, and sometimes eighteen pence per acre for the spring half year; but in summer it is much higher, as provision must be made for the expence of roads, &c. accounted for at the Summer Assizes; but the tax differs in almost every barony. Formerly this tax has been as high as six shillings per acre, when illicit still fines were levied on the barony.-Quit rent is another tax of two pence halfpenny per acre.-Vestry money for church repairs, about three halfpence per acre. There are several other heavy taxes which few grumble at, because they are voluntary; for instance, the tax caused by the depredations of vermin of all sorts, is beyond all calculation, but seems to be little noticed. I am convinced however, it is much more than those necessary ones imposed by the legislature. Another heavy tax is the drunkeness which every fair, market, or funeral induces. Many of those who take every opportunity to evade the tax of a few pence for custom at a fair, would think little of spending five shillings in whiskey. I do not know of any other taxes but the usual ones of hearth, window, dog, horse and carriage; to evade which many mean precautions are taken of locking up, or sending away dogs, horses and carriages, and giving false returns of every thing taxable; yet those men would send a message to any one who should dare to express a doubt of their honor! what a degrading idea for a man of fortune! "There are a

" variety of little meannesses of which persons, other"wise of reputation and credit, are guilty, to save tri"fles in expenditure; but surely none at once so sense"less and reprehensible, as the endeavour to defraud

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government of the taxes legally imposed upon us. It "is the same thing as defrauding a private individual, " and indeed comes to that at last. It is bidding de"fiance to the law; hurting fair dealers; and robbing "our rulers of their due, to the diminution of those "duties which must be made good by new levies on the "public."

SECTION V.

PROPORTION OF WORKING HORSES AND OXEN TO THE SIZE OF FARMS.

It is difficult to ascertain the proportion of working horses or oxen to the size of farms; but I imagine in general it is far below what a well cultivated farm would require, where manure is to be brought from any distance; this indeed, except near large towns on the sea coast, is very seldom thought of. It is true that many use a good deal of limestone gravel, but the carriage of this is usually done by hired horses or asses with baskets, and seldom farther than the adjoining field or bog. A farm of one to three hundred acres, may perhaps possess six horses, but frequently the farmer hires others when there is a press of work in spring: small farms one or two horses, but they also hire or borrow additional horses. Where villages possess horses, they generally assist each other. Oxen are not as much used as they should be. Poor people sometimes yoke a

horse and a cow together in a plough or harrow. I have often seen a very small heifer drawing three large sacks of oats to Ballinasloe market; it were much to be wished this practice was more general; of their superior fitness for the work of a poor man, there can be little doubt; for independent of many other advantages, an ox or heifer will thrive and work on the food that would not be sufficient for a working horse, and when past their labour, they will probably bring more than their original cost, whilst the horse is worth little or nothing: I believe the cause of the preference is merely custom; a powerful opposer to every kind of improvement. A few farmers use oxen, but always four in a plough for the slightest work; they are never fed as they ought to be, either in summer or winter. In summer, after a hard day's work, instead of being turned into good grass, where they would fill their bellies quickly, they are almost always consigned to some bare pasture, where they can merely exist: instead of this unfeeling mode, they should be soiled in the house in summer with some kind of nourishing green food; in winter with turnips, cabbage, potatoes, mangel worzel, Fiorin grass, &c. &c. and plenty of the best hay or good oaten straw fresh threshed: if they are fed in this manner, they will be able to bear any work that a horse would, and be always ready to turn to fatten in forward condition; where this management is observed, scarcely too many can be kept, as, if they do not work, they are in such high condition, as always to command a ready market, whilst on the contrary idle horses would ruin a farmer.

SECTION VI.

GENERAL SIZE OF FIELDS AND ENCLOsures.

THERE is an endless variety in the size of fields: those of graziers and the better kind of farmers vary from five or six to twenty acres or more, but frequently in the farms of graziers, especially those stocked with sheep, several fields are thrown into one by gaps or prostrate walls, though some are very careful in the building, and maintaining the permanency of their walls.

The ancient cantred of land consisted of thirty townlands, each as much as would pasture three hundred head of cattle; every townland had eight carricates or plough lands of 120 acres each, so that a townland contained 960 acres, and a cantred would pasture 9000 head of cattle. The name of cantred or carrucate is now little used, but that of townland still subsists, but not confined to any limited number of acres. The size of fields appropriated to tillage, is also very various, running from one to perhaps thirty acres, but fields of that extent do not frequently occur. The fields that produce the fine wheat which supplies the numerous mills of Galway, are generally small; those also that feed the much prized calves in the island of Arran are very small, and the ground rocky. On an average, tillage bears but a small proportion to grazing, but varies much in the different baronies; in the mountainous baronies of Moycullen, Ballynahinch, and Ross, beyond all calculation in favor of grazing. There are many advantages attending enclosures of a moderate size, not one of the least, is the shelter they afford from westerly winds, which prevail most de

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