terioration, and endeavoured to impress them with the superior immediate and future profit of alternate green and corn crops, but the answer has been almost universally here as well as in the county of Clare "what will you have us do, when our landlord or rich neighbours pursue the same system, though they pay their stewards thirty or forty pounds a year." Until landed. proprietors see with their own eyes, or procure those from whom the mist of prejudice has been cleared, to conduct their affairs, this must ever be the case. The ignorance and consequent obstinacy of old-light stewards, who maintain that nothing but corn or cattle can pay any rent, I am perfectly convinced has tended more to retard improvement in Ireland, than all other causes put together.

For the information of those farmers who may not have had an opportunity of seeing better practices, or of reading those books where they are detailed, I shall endeavour to suggest such a course, as will not only give a superior immediate profit, but after any length of time leave their land in still better heart then when they began. The usual bad course I have before mentioned, is either to pare and burn the surface, or manure with black mud * and a little manure mixed, for 1st, potato-2d, wheat,-8d, and 4th, oats, and frequently this grain continued until the productive quality of the ground is completely exhausted. After this it remains for several years producing scarcely any thing but half starved weeds of the worst kinds. Instead of this exhausting course, I would advise the following course

⚫ For the information of such as may not know what is meant by black mud, it is necessary to inform them, it is part of the bog, usually the surface, brought home in summer, and spread about their doors; this is mixed with any manure they can scrape together, and remains an offensive black puddle until spring. If they are near a road, the sides are cut away to mix with it.

should be adopted in light soils (but not sandy) of which the greater part of this county consists.-1st, potatoes in ridges as usual, after burning, or with manure; 2d, wheat, barley or oats; 3d, clover and rye. grass, or clover alone sowed with the preceding corn crop; this to remain for two years if good; if not, it should remain only one year. The ground should then be broke up in autumn, and laid dry all the winter; at the usual season it should be manured for potatoes in drills, and the same course pursued as before; the clover should be mowed every day, and should lie in the swath until the following day, and given to stock of every kind in small quantities at a time; for this purpose a good ass and small well formed cart will, where the number of cattle is not very great, be found to answer best, as there is not that temptation to storing large quantities at a time, than which nothing is more to be dreaded, as it would heat very soon, and be refused by the cattle; then, indeed, the old-light steward, and the man who attended the cattle, would be in their element. "There now my lord, didn't I tell 66 you the cattle never would thrive in the house in "summer; it is against nature, &c." If the cattle have been well littered with the straw produced along with the clover, a vast heap of manure will be produced, and will bring their ground to an uncommon state of fertility; they will find that if this course is pursued for any number of years, the ground will be in better heart than it was originally. The introduction of rape, vetches, turnips, mangel worzel, &c. &c. must be

In general the quantity of clover seed is not sufficient; not less than twenty-one pounds to the acre should ever be sowed, though the ground may appear to be covered, yet when this crop has too much room, and not cut at an early stage of its growth, it becomes woody, and unpalatable to cattle.

gradually introduced, when a taste for improvement dawns on the mind, and the value of the soiling system is better known; until that period arrives (and the acceleration of it depends much on landlords), it would only perplex, perhaps deter those for whose benefit this course is suggested.

Whilst the small farmer or cottier is pursuing this course, it is to be hoped that those of information and larger income will lead the way in the introduction and cultivation, on improved and steady principles, of the best kinds of green crops, cultivated in a superior style, and consumed in the house by stock; then, and not before, will be the time to expect such good practices will be generally adopted. Irish farmers are not that race of obstinate fools they are sometimes called, they are not more wedded to the customs of their ancestors than the inhabitants of any other country of the same rank and neglected education; I have ever found them willing to be instructed, if gentle methods are used, and they have reason to think they shall not lose by their experiment; but the language of petulance too often used to them, is not calulated to make proselytes; for instance, within two or three years, the practice of ploughing with two horses by those who formerly used four, has been in many places adopted, especially in the neighbourhood of those gentlemen who practice ploughing with a pair, without a leader; it is true, the boy to lead has been too generally retained; but lately I have in a few instances seen even him discarded; probably he is oftener retained for the sake of society than use. A gentleman in this county asked his ploughman could he plough with reins; " to be sure I can, Sir, but the horses cannot speak to me."-Example here, as in most cases, is worth volumes of directions, and when it is furnished by one

of their own rank, it may be expected that other good practices will be extended amongst the small farmers and cottiers who stand most in need of it, to enable them to discharge the high rents they usually pay, made still higher by their own defective management.

Fallowing is still practised very much, but not to the extent it was formerly; the encreased cultivation of potatoes has, in a great measure, rendered it unnecessary; the great rise in rents too have contributed to this desirable abolition; farmers will at length become sensible of the loss they sustain by this triennial tax on their profits, besides fallowing, according to the careless method generally practised, has not the extended effect of cleaning the land, but quite the contrary, for it helps to divide and transplant the roots of perennial weeds; and we frequently see fallows covered with thistles, ragweed, and other pernicious weeds in full seed, blowing about the country; in fact they are generally green fallows. Two crops of wheat are sometimes, but not often taken in succession; the want of capital, even more than ignorance of the bad consequence, is the chief cause of the defective tillage before mentioned. It is by no means uncommon for a man scarcely possessed of a guinea, to take fifty or an hundred acres of land; if the land has been under grass for some years, he is certain of setting almost every acre of it for eight to ten pounds an acre, for burning for potatoes for each of the two succeeding years; the third year he gets perhaps five or six pounds per acre, for sowing oats, and as long as he can get any one to take the ground, and then perhaps leaves it on the landlord's hands, in the wretched state I have before mentioned. As the fondness for money generally encreases with possession, our landjobber becoming possessed of a sum he never had reason to expect, extends

*

his views to new and larger undertakings; to accomplish this, regardless of future loss, he grasps at present gains, grows expensive in his living, becomes a tippler at dram shops, and not unfrequently in a few years gets an abatement in the rent (as a reward for his good management) from his unthinking absentee landlord, or his Dublin agent, totally ignorant of country affairs, and then lets the farm in small lots to poor cottiers (who must have land) at an exorbitant rent, and becomes one of those pests of society, an unimproving middleman, + and a lender of money in small sums, for which he exacts usurious interest in various articles of produce and labour: if he wants the re-possession of a piece of land, he lets the tenant run in arrear, and then pounces on him with an ejectment, sells even the bed from under him, and turns him out to beg: every one acquainted with the county of Galway can easily find the original of this picture.

The exertions made by small farmers and cottiers to procure manure is extraordinary, often to the great injury of the roads; this ascertains to a certainty that a little attention on the part of their landlord, or his agent, would accomplish this sine quá non of good tillage; most of them keep cows in the house in winter, and frequently feed them with small potatoes, of the value of which they are perfectly sensible; then how easy would it be to induce them to cultivate a small

G

Mr. M.Evoy, in his excellent Survey of the County of Tyrone coincides most fully in this idea, page 128.-" Agents not acquainted with country business may be considered a great bar to improvement." The improvement of land depends very much on the activity and knowledge of agents.

I beg it may be understood that I consider the man of substance and skill who takes a tract of unimproved land for the purpose of improving, and then reletting, is a blessing to his country.