some with the short-horn, some with the Hereford, and some with the Ayrshire breeds. Generally they were prime cattle, and in fine condition for fattening off either on pasture or in the stall. Ballinasloe seems a very thriving town.

The houses are good, and the churches and other public buildings handsome and substantial. It must be much benefited by the influx of people attending the fairs, and it has also the advantage of a careful resident landlord, the Earl of Clancarty.

At Garbally, his lordship's residence, I met Lords Howth, Monk, Dunsandle, the Bishop of Tuam, and several other gentlemen; all of whom seemed much interested in farming, and possessed of a good practical knowledge of it. Lord Clancarty mentioned the case of one of his tenants, holding 20 acres, who, notwithstanding the times, managed, by house-feeding and green crops, to dower his daughters handsomely, besides fulfilling all his other engagements.

From Ballinasloe to Aughrim, six miles, after passing Lord Clancarty's demesne, the land is thin and poor. Beyond that to Loughrea, fourteen miles, it becomes very fine, mostly in grass, and much of it in need of draining. The crops of thistles on the pastures are most luxuriant, and flourish undisturbed. Having viewed the country in this direction, I returned to Ballinasloc, and left next morning for Hollymount by Bianconi's four-horse car.

Shortly after leaving the town, the road passes through an extensive bog, beyond which the first village reached is Ahascrag, where the appearance of a man in authority, clothed in bluc, with sundry stripes of red braid on his

10

JOUNT BELLEW-TUAM.

cap, arms, and trousers, attracted our notice. To an inquiry from a gentleman on the car, he replied that he was the bailiff of a landed proprietor, who employed also five or six others, at 138. a-week during harvest ; and that their business was to prevent the tenants carrying off their crops, when cut, to evade payment of rent. When asked if, on such a duty, he was not afraid of being shot, he told us, with a knowing look, that there was no fear of that, for their employer had taken care to select them as being the worst characters in the population. Whether this was a joke or not, it certainly is a queer relation in which the landlord and his tenants stand, with such intermediate agents as these.

At Mount Bellew, the road is very picturesque; the village, with a finely wooded stream issuing from the demesne in which the house and lawns are seen through the trees; the rich hedge-rows, which are here intermingled with ivy and wild-flowers, and remind one of the luxuriance of a Devonshire lane; all contribute to form a very pleasing picture.

From this to Tuam the land is light, but some of it good sheep pasture. Many people were busy at haymaking. In the immediate neighbourhood of the town of Tuam, on the demesne of the bishop, the land was well farmed; finc fields of Swedish turnips and clover indicating superior management. The Roman Catholic cathedral forms a prominent object. It was market-day, and the streets densely crowded by men and women, horses and carts, sacks of corn and other agricultural produce exposed for sale. After changing

LOANS-PEASANTRY.

11

horses, we proceeded on to Hollymount. The fields along the road were usually very well fenced with stone walls, “ dashed” with lime, and with a stone and lime coping, substantial, and many of them new. Building walls of this kind is included in the objects for which Government loans, under the Land Improvement Act, are made to the owners of land.

The appearance of the peasantry always attracts the stranger's notice. Whatever they were doing, as soon as the car came in sight all eyes were turned to it. The boy on the cart, pitching up sheaves to the stack, sat himself down till we passed; the man on the stack thrust his hands into his pockets, to keep them from catching cold while he was looking at us.

The haymakers were all on the watch.—Three carts were in a field being loaded with corn. Two were loaded ; on the third, a man was building the sheaves, while a young boy was carrying them to the cart, and then throwing them up with his hand, (for they seem to bave no forks,) while two men were close by leaning against the loaded carts, but offering no assistance to the boy, who had the hardest work of the party. Some of the cottages on the road-side looked very neat; but in these you could notice the pig coming out and in at the door, evidently on the most friendly terms with the inmates. “ Arrah," as Paddy says, “an’ who has a better right ? Sure, isn't it lie that pays the rint?"

On the grazing farms, the method of providing the winter food seems to be this. Certain fields are shut up for hay. When it is made, it is built in very large round ricks, a pole being first fixed in the ground,

12

WINTER FOOD ON GRAZING FARMS.

round which as a centre the bay is built. The rick is then encircled with a paling, 12 feet or so distant from it all round. The paling is open below, so as to admit

, sheep but not cattle. The field is then shut up from stock, that there may be a good aftergrowth. At the fall of the season the sheep and young cattle are admitted to these fields. When the weather is severe, the sheep go through the paling to eat the hay, at the same time pulling out much more than they eat. The shepherd throws this over to the young cattle. As the sheep eat into the bottom of the rick, it gradually slides down the pole which keeps it all together. The whole plan is economical and ingenious. One rick, with the aftergrowth of grass, generally affords food for 200 sheep and 10 young cattle. In some cases, the meadow land round the rick is too soft for cattle, or might be injured by their feet in winter. When this is the case, the cattle are kept outside of the field within which the hay is stacked, the sheep getting access to it by the sheep-holes in the walls. The shepherd then carries the bay for the cattle to the outside of the wall, laying it down for them at the most sheltered part.

On my way from Ballinasloe to Hollymount, I had the good fortune to travel with Mr Bianconi. He was coming down to start a new coach for the convenience of “his friends the public," and complained loudly of the Postmaster-general for giving the mail contract to a party who was to carry it with a car and two horses, for 9d a-mile, when he offered to put on a coach and four, and carry the mail-guard free, for 10d. a-mile. “ You don't understand us in England,” he said ; “that

is the way you treat men of capital and enterprise, who are ready to embark both if they get the least encouragement. For 1d. a-mile the Postmaster-general sacrificed the protection such a coach would have given to the mails, besides the better accommodation that would have been afforded by it to the public. And here am I, at a moment's notice, with 150 horses thrown idle on my hands.” Perhaps the Postmaster-general, as usual in such cases, would have given a different version of the story. Mr Bianconi was buying hay, of excellent quality, at 18s. to 20s. a-ton.