vantage but his own. Drill machines are used by very few; drill barrows are more used. Carts are little used, except by gentlemen; they are too expensive for small farmers, and inside cars (those with the wheels under the body) are generally used, though very unfit for farming purposes, as both from their weak construction, and being shut up behind, a load of manure or any other substance must be taken out by shovels, instead of throwing back the car to disengage the load as practised in Leinster. Another objection to them arises from the wheels not turning on the axis, by which means in turning, one wheel makes a hole in the ground whilst the other describes a circle; besides from the clumsiness of the wooden axis, an additional share of friction is caused. What are usually called Leinster cars (the wheels without side the body) are a good deal used, but generally so weakly and badly made they can bear but small loads, and are seldom thrown back to disengage the load, but must receive some assistance from the shovel or pitchfork, which consumes much time and labour; the wheel should turn on the axis, and the line of draught should be nearly in a line with the side of the cart or car; the observance of this, and the proper proportion necessary to be thrown on the horse's back, are the principal cause of the superiority of the drays, which are now almost universally preferred by carriers of goods, to the almost total exclusion of the car; this formerly carried only at the utmost about 12 cwt., but the dray now, with the same horse, carries with more ease from 20 to 25 cwt. To prevent the injury the roads must receive from this additional pressure on a wheel of only two or three inches, I imagine a law should be enacted to oblige the proprietors to use wheels eight inches broad. Probably from not understanding the subject there might be an outcry

raised at first against the change, but it is well known that the additional weight would be much more than counterbalanced by the facility it would give them of avoiding many ruts and shocks from the wheels getting between stones that the broad wheels would roll smoothly over, and a considerable share of friction on the edges of the wheels would be prevented; at present, carriages so heavily laden, and with such small wheels, do considerable injury to roads, especially after hard frosts.

In Connamara and other hilly countries, slide-cars shod with iron are used; they are the only kind that could be used for carrying loads down a steep hill; in this situation wheels would precipitate the horse down the hill and destroy him. Wheel barrows are uniformly of bad construction, the weight is almost entirely thrown on the hands instead of the wheel. That simple and useful machine a potato washer, is scarcely known; where much potatoes are used it saves much time and trouble. Winnowing machines are much used, but from not keeping them oiled you may hear them grating and spoiling the wheels a mile off. The machine for dressing flax, invented by Mr. Lee, introduced here by the Farming Society of Ireland, had better never have been introduced at their show, for from the bungling exhibition at Ballinasloe it only helped to confirm the prejudices against it; the person who shewed the process had never worked it before, so was excusable. From the result of a small trial I made, I am almost convinced the process might be much shortened and simplified; I fear prejudice has operated strongly against it. When I have leisure I purpose making some further experiments on this, and a method to avoid the troublesome and nauseous process of steeping the flax, or provincially" bogging." There is scarcely an implement in the county with a good and

light handle, or well and permanently fixed; they are constantly running to a stone to fix them, for they seldom ever think of repairing their tools at home at night; a few examples of sending them home from work, where it evidently appeared from indolence, would soon cure the evil. Scythes are uniformly badly set, especially when they mow for others, of course the grass is left uncut and in waves; when they mow for themselves they shave the grass to the earth. The beaters of the flails are generally too long and too light, and instead of being straight, as they should be, are usually crooked. Scutching boards for flax are always too long and too narrow, by which means at every stroke the flax laps round the board, much of it is torn off; they should be heart shaped and a foot broad. The plough I have mentioned before. The teeth of the harrow are usually too short as well as those of hay rakes, and leave much of the hay behind. Pitchforks uniformly too short in the prongs, and cannot lift half the load they should do. Spades very unhandy, and so slightly fixed to the handle cannot bear the least effort of strength, and the head always loose or coming off the handle; when worn they are most unfit for moving loose earth, to the loss of many thousands of pounds in this county. Shovels in many places are made of wood, edged round and pointed with thin iron, and so easily broken, they are useless for breaking hard lumps of earth, or properly beating the face of a ditch, a thing, by the bye, I have never seen done in this county. I once tried the experiment of watering and hard beating, often repeated, on the face of the ditch; the result was, that it became like a hard flag and remained uninjured by frost, and quite free from weeds.

SECTION V.

MARKETS FOR GRAIN.

THE market towns of Galway, Loughrea, Tuam, Ballinasloe, Gort, Eyrecourt, and lately a market established at Mount Bellew, which promises to be of great utility, are well supplied with grain, chiefly wheat and oats, and when the distilleries are at work with a considerable quantity of barley, but much less now than when malt only was used at the distilleries and breweries. The numerous flour mills which have been established within a few years, have helped greatly to increase and improve the cultivation of wheat, affording to the farmer a certain and ready sale for his corn; and as there is always a smart competition between the millers, especially of Galway, he is certain of receiving the full market price of the day. Tuam, Loughrea, Gort, and Eyrecourt, have market houses, whilst Galway, where there is so much grain sold, is without one; that at Loughrea, from its small size, is almost useless. The erection of one in Galway has been talked of these fifty years past, but nothing has been done. Until 1810, the market house was a cellar in Market-street; at present a coach-house near Meyrick-square is thought sufficient by the corporation, who, if ever they awake from their doze, I advise to view the market house of Drogheda, as particularly worthy of notice; it combines utility with ornament. The exportation of grain from the port of Galway was scarcely known before the union, and was first carried on to any extent by the late Mr. Thomas Appleyard, about the year 1804, who continued this most useful traffick during his life. It has been also greatly extended by the Mr. Joyces,

Messrs. Clarke, and several other merchants during the war. Since that period it has declined much.

The mode of payment at the mills is generally cash; sometimes notes at short dates, according to the credit of the miller or the wants of the farmer, and until lately, country bankers notes were preferred to those of the Bank of Ireland. It was a common thing to hear a countryman ask a friend to change a bank of Ireland note for one of Lord French's. Corn is usually sold by sample, and some caution is necessary when receiving it at the mill. The millers generally send their flour to Dublin by land carriage; they prefer this mode to sending it by the canal, as the uncertainty of the time of its arrival has been found inconvenient to many. It has not been found, though often prognosticated, that the want of the inland bounty formerly paid, has in the least diminished the quantity of corn cultivated. Whatever objections may have been made against the act for granting a bounty on the inland carriage of corn to Dublin, it cannot be denied that it caused the erection of a multitude of very fine flour mills, of course promoted the cultivation of corn in districts, that from want of this encouragement scarcely produced as much as supplied the home consumption: at the same time the good effects of either bounties or restrictions (with some exceptions) on any kind of produce, are at least doubtful, the steadiness of the demand being a much better stimulus than an act of parliament. How many exposed themselves to ridicule a few years ago, when they proposed acts of parliament to oblige farmers to bring their corn to market, and to establish a maximum of price. How indignant these wise heads would be, if a maximum of rent was proposed, or a maximum on any commercial production; but it seems they considered that agriculture was of less consequence than any other branch