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OCTOBER 3d, taking my leave of Johnstown and its agreeable and hospitable family, I took the road towards Derry, the seat of Michael Head, Esq; through a country much of it bordering on the Shannon, and commanding many fine views of that river; but its nakedness, except at particular places, takes off much from the beauty of the scenery. Near to Derry there are some finer views. From one hill, the road commands the bay of Skeriff, Loch Dergg back to Johnstown; and the river turning under the hills of Achnis, a promontory of wood, which separates them, is fully seen: there are also many hedges, so well grown with scattered trees as to have a pleasing effect. I found Mr. Head, on my arrival, just going to dine with a neighbour, Mr. Parker, whose father had worked a very fine mountain improvement, and who would probably be there: this was a sufficient inducement, had there been no other, for me to accompany him. I found Mr. Parker's house so near the river, as sometimes to be washed by it. The improvement I had heard of is a hill of above 40 acres, which was covered with ling, (erica vulgaris)
furze, (eulex europaeus)
&c. and not worth 6d. an acre thirty-two years ago when the work was begun. He grubbed, ploughed it, and sowed oats, and marled the stubble from the Shannon; the marle, from the steepness of the hill, being carried on the backs of oxen. Upon this he took a crop of wheat, and another of oats, both exceedingly fine, and with the latter sowed the seeds for the grass, which still remains, and has been improving ever since; it is now worth 30s. an acre, and a very pleasing object to the eye, especially since Mr. Parker, junior, has added to the fineness of the verdure and herbage by seeding it with many sheep. IN the same conversation I also learned a few particulars of a bog of twelve acres, part of one of 150, improved by Mr. Minchin, near Nenagh. The first operation was to cut main drains six feet deep, and cross ones of 18 inches or two feet, and as soon as it was a little firm, it was covered with lime-stone gravel three inches thick, before the bog would bear a car; done by beginning at the edge, and advancing on the part gravelled. Part was tilled, and part left for grass without ploughing: the meadow thus formed has been exceedingly fine. One uncommon circumstance was, the improver having paved the bottom of the drains with gravel, in order to prevent cattle from being bogged in them. The expence of the whole work, £8 an acre. The profit immense. IT is to Mr. Head's attention that I am indebted for the following particulars concerning the barony of Owna and Arra. The soil is a light gravelly loam, on a slaty rock, which is almost general through the whole. The rent on an average, 15s. for profitable land, and 1s. for mountain; and as there is about half and half, the whole will be 8s. The rise of rent, in twenty years, is about double. Estates are generally large, scarce any so low as £5 or £600 a year. Farms are all small, none above 3 or 400 acres: many are taken in partnership, three, four, or five families to 100 acres. They divide the land among themselves, each man taking according to his capital. The terms rundale
and changedale
unknown, as is the latter practice. There are no farms without buildings upon them. Laying out money in building better houses would pay no interest at all, as they were perfectly satisfied with their mud cabbins. Courses of crops on reclaimed mountain. 1. Marle for oats. 2. Bere. 3. Bere. 4. Wheat. 5. Oats, or English barley. 6. Oats. 7. Oats. 8. Oats. 9. Oats. 10. Oats. The number of these crops of oats proportioned to the quantity of marle laid on; but the rule is to take as long as the land will yield, and then leave it to recover itself by weeds. Another course: 1. Potatoes in drills on an exhausted stubble. 2. Bere. 3. Oats. 4. Oats. 5. Oats. 6. Oats, and so on till none will be got. THE quantity of wheat is very little; for that little they sow a barrel an acre, and get 8 barrels; medium price 10d. to 13d. a stone. Of bere they sow a barrel, and get 15. Of oats sow two barrels, the produce 8 to 15, according to being early or late in the course. Price of bere six-pence to seven-pence halfpenny. Oats, four-pence to six-pence per stone. No pease, beans, clover, or turnips; but they have little patches of flax for their own consumption. Potatoes they very generally cultivate in drills; plough the stubble twice or thrice, and then open trenches with the plough three feet asunder; in which they put some dung, lay the sets on it, and cover them with the plough if they have horses, or if not with shovels. They keep them clean by constant earthing up with ploughs or shovels. They dig them out, the produce thirty-five barrels per acre. They find that nothing is so good and clean a fallow for corn. Some poor people hire grass land for them in the lazy bed way, paying £3 to £5 10s. per acre. The only manure used besides dung is the shelly marle, dredged up from the bottom of the Shannon. Mr. Mr; Head's grandfather was the first who introduced that method of getting it by bringing men from Dublin used to raising ballast. It proved so profitable, that the use has been much increased since. It lies irregularly in banks, from 100 to 200 yards from the shore, and under 10 or 12 feet of water in summer, which is the only time they can get it. The price of raising is from 1s. to 2s. according to circumstances, besides finding boat, ropes, and all tackle; a boat contains 60 bushels, and requires five men. They land it on a quay, from whence it is taken in sledge carts to some distance for drying, nor is it dry enough for carting away till the year following. Some think it worth carrying one mile, and even two; The common people do not lay on more than four or five boat loads to an acre, but Mr. Head always ten, and the whole expence he calculates at 40s. Much bad land has been reclaimed by it, and to great profit. All their dung is used for potatoes. The tillage of the common people is done with horses, four in a plough, which do half an acre a day: gentlemen use four oxen. The price 8s. an acre. No paring and burning. They shut up their meadows for hay in march or april, and rarely begin to mow till september. I should remark, that I saw the hay making or marring all the way (october 3d) from Johnstown hither, with many fields covered with water, and the cocks forming little islands in them. They are generally two months making it; the crop one to one ton and a half per acre. THERE is no regular system of cattle in this barony, there not being above four or five graziers; but gentlemen, in their domains, have all the different systems. The common farmers keep a few of most sorts of cattle, except fat ones. No large flocks of sheep, but every farmer a few breeding ewes. The fleeces four to a stone. They sell either lambs, hoggits, or two or three year olds; the price of a two-year old ewe, 10s. they have no winter food but grass, even the gentlemen have their fat mutton all winter from the low grass lands on the Shannon, without either hay or turnips. The marled land has a remarkable spring of grass in the winter; the rot is very little known. All keep pigs, which are much increased of late; their pork, 32s. a cwt. last year at Limerick; Mr. Head has known it so low as 14s. No proportion between cows and pigs. IN hiring farms, many will take them in partnership with no other capital than a little stock of cattle. Difficult to fix the number of years purchase at which land sells. None has been sold in this barony in Mr. Head's memory. Leases to protestants three lives. The common mode of labour is that of cottars: they have a cabbin and an acre for 30s. and 30s. more the grass of a cow, reckoning with them at five-pence a day the year round; other labour vibrates from fourpence to six-pence. A cottar with a middling family will have two cows; there is not one without a cow. All of them keep as many pigs as they can rear, and some poultry. Their circumstances are rather better than 20 years ago. A cottar's expences.
WHEN my informant, who was a poor man, had finished, I demanded how the 20s. deficiency, with whisky, and the priest, were to be paid; the answer was, that he must not eat his geese and pig, or else not dress so well
, which probably is the case. Their acre of garden feeds them the year through; nine months on potatoes, and the other three on oaten bread, from their own oats. The consumption of potatoes not increased in twenty years. A family of five persons will eat and waste forty-two stone of potatoes in a week. They are not addicted in any remarkable degree to thieving. The cottars of a farm might easily be taken from it, and yet the farm let without difficulty, for the tenant would soon have others; but it is questioned whether they could easily be made farmers of. DANCING is very general among the poor people, almost universal in every cabbin. Dancing-masters of their own rank travel through the country from cabbin to cabbin, with a piper or blind fidler; and the pay is six-pence a quarter. It is an absolute system of education. Weddings are always celebrated with much dancing; and a sunday rarely passes without a dance; there are very few among them who will not, after a hard day's work, gladly walk seven miles to have a dance. John
is not so lively, but then a hard day's work with him is certainly a different affair from what it is with Paddy
. Other branches of education are likewise much attended to, every child of the poorest family learning to read, write, and cast accounts. There is a very antient custom here, for a number of country neighbours among the poor people, to fix upon some young woman that ought, as they think, to be married; they also agree upon a young fellow as a proper husband for her; this determined, they send to the fair one's cabbin to inform her, that on the sunday following she is to be horsed
, that is, carried on men's backs. She must then provide whisky and cyder for a treat, as all will pay her a visit after mass for a hurling match. As soon as she is horsed
, the hurling begins, in which the young fellow appointed for her husband has the eyes of all the company fixed on him; if he comes off conqueror, he is certainly married to the girl, but if another is victorious, he as certainly loses her, for she is the prize of the victor. These trials are not always finished in one sunday, they take sometimes two or three, and the common expression when they are over is, that such a girl was goal'd.
Sometimes one barony hurls against another, but a marriageable girl is always the prize. Hurling is a sort of cricket, but instead of throwing the ball in order to knock down a wicket, the aim is to pass it through a bent stick, the ends stuck in the ground. In these matches they perform such feats of activity, as ought to evidence the food they live on to be far from deficient in nourishment. TYTHES—Potatoes, 5s. Wheat, barley, bere, 5s. Oats, 2s. 6d. Meadow, 2s. They are in the management of proctors, but the greatest hardship attending them, is the poor man paying for his garden, while the rich grazier pays nothing, owing to the famous vote of the house of commons. THERE is only one flour mill in the barony, and the increase of tillage is very trifling, but the whisky stills at Killaloe, trebled in five or six years. Prices not in the tables:
Wild ducks, 1s. a couple. Teal, 6d. Plover, 2d. Salmon, three halfpence to 3d. per lb. Large pike, 2s. 6d. each. Trout, of 12 inches long, 1d. each. Eels, 1s. a dozen, ten a penny in summer, three in winter. Women's labour in harvest, 3d. in winter, 2d. Maid's wages, £1 10s. A lad's, £1 8s. Mowing, per acre, 2s. 4d. Women earn by spinning, 3d. Hire of a car, with man and horse, 1S. 6d. Threshing wheat, per barrel, 6d. Bere, 4d. Oats, two-pence halfpenny. Barley, 3d. IN the hills above Derry are some very fine slate quarries, that employ 60 men. The quarrymen are paid 3s. a thousand for the slates, and the labourers, 5d. a day. They are very fine, and sent by the Shannon to distant parts of the kingdom; the price at the quarry, 6s. a thousand, and at the shore, 6s. 8d. 400,000 slates are raised to pay the rent only, from which some estimate may be made of the quantity. Mt. Head has made some considerable improvements of waste or rough land by means of marle. His first was a field of 14 acres 10 years ago; the soil light, as before described, of the country in general; the spontaneous growth, furze and fern, worth 5s. an acre. He cleared it from stones, which were used for building; the expence small, marled it, and sowed five crops of corn, and with the last of them hay seeds: it became a meadow in two years, and is now worth 30s. an acre. The next was a field of eight acres, the same soil; he broke it up for potatoes, then took one crop of corn, marled it on the stubble, and sowed five crops of corn, laying down with the fifth. Worth 8s. an acre before, now 30s. Five acres and an half were also done, marled on the surface, the effect little; it was therefore ploughed up in four or five years; yielded two crops of good turnips, two of English barley, and then laid down. It is now worth 30s. an acre. The next attempt was upon 16 acres, not worth 2s. 6d. an acre, over-run with furze, fern, and heath, with so many stones that clearing them away cost 10s. an acre. Ploughed and burnt it, and took two crops of turnips, then two of oats. Left it to itself for five or six years, and then marled it, since it has yielded four crops of corn, and is now worth £1 2s. 9d. an acre. The last improvement is a field of 11acres, which has been lately marled. MR. Head has 400 sheep, they consist of 100 breeding ewes.—100 lambs.—84 hoggits.—70 three year old wethers and culled ewes, fat.—46 two year old wethers. He sells annually MR. Head has a practice in his fences which deserves universal imitation: it is planting trees for gate-posts. Stone piers are expensive, and always tumbling down; trees are beautiful, and never want repairing. Within 15 years this gentleman has improved Derry so much, that those who had only seen it before, would find it almost a new creation. He has built a handsome stone-house, on the slope of a hill rising from the Shannon, and backed by some fine woods, which unite with many old hedges well planted to form a woodland scene, beautiful in the contrast to the bright expanse of the noble river below: the declivity, on which these woods are, finishes in a mountain, which rises above the whole. The Shannon gives a bend around the adjoining lands, so as to be seen from the house both to the west and north, the lawn falling gradually to a margin of wood on the shore, which varies the outline. The river is two miles broad, and on the opposite shore cultivated inclosures rise in some places almost to the mountain top, which is very bold. It is a singular demesne, a stripe of very beautiful ground, reaching two miles along the banks of the river, which forms his fence on one side, with a wall on the other. There is so much wood as to render it very pleasing, adding to every day by planting all the fences made or repaired. From several little hills, which rise in different parts, extensive views of the river are commanded quite to Portumna; but these are much eclipsed by that from the top of the hill above the slate quarry. From thence you see the river for at least 40 miles, from Portumna to 20 miles beyond Limerick. It has the appearance of a fine bason, two miles over, into which three great rivers lead, being the north and south course and the bay of Skeriff. The reaches of it one beyond another to Portumna are fine. At the foot of the mountain Mr. Head's demesne extends in a shore of rich woodland. OCTOBER 7th, took my leave of that gentleman, after passing four days with him very agreeably. Through Killaloe, over the Shannon, a very long bridge of many arches; went out of the road to see a fall of that river at Castle Connel, where there is such an accompanyment of wood as to form a very pleasing scenery; the river takes a rapid rocky course, around a projecting rock, on which a gentleman has built a summer-house, and formed a terrace: it is a striking spot. To Limerick. Laid at Bennis's, the first inn we had slept in from Dublin. Preserve us from another! THE 8th, leaving that place, I took the road through Palace to Cullen. The first six or seven miles from Limerick has a great deal of corn, which shews that tillage is gaining even upon bullocks themselves. 1 observed with much pleasure, that all the cottars had their little gardens surrounded with banks well planted with osiers. To the Rev. Mr. Lloyd's, at Castle Lloyd, near Cullen, a gentleman who I found as able and willing as he had been represented, to give me the intelligence I wished relative to the grazing grounds around him.—The following particulars, which I owe to him, concern more immediately the barony of Clanwilliam in Tipperary; the same in Limerick, Small County, and the part of Coonagh next Clanwilliam. In these parts the soil and management are much the same: that of Oonabeg nearly, but not quite equal. The soil is a loam of a yellowish brown, friable, but putrid and mixed witb a small quantity of grit stones upon a lime-stone rock, at the depth of two, three, and four feet; much of it is very dry, but the richest has what is here called a tender moist skin
, which yields so much to the tread of beasts that it breaks under them: the richer and the more improved it is, the more so. It is a great error to assert, that it would not do for tillage, for there is none better for the purpose if properly managed. The average rent of the rich parts of this tract, is 30s. an acre. In Coonagh there are 19,313 acres, half of it not worth 5s. an acre, being mountainous. In the last twenty years, the rents of the rich lands have risen about a fourth, and two-thirds since the year 1748. AVERAGE of the county of Tipperary, 12s. 6d. Ditto of Limerick, 10s. 6d. Ditto of Corke, 5s. ESTATES are generally very large, but some so low as £300 a year. Farms rise from small ones in partnership to 5 or 6000 acres. The tillage acts have had the effect of lessening them evidently. The great system of this district is that of grazing. Bullocks are bought in at the fairs of Ballinasloe, Newport, Bannagher, Toomavarra, &c. in the months of september, october, and november, the prices from £5 to £8 average, £6. Twenty years ago beasts were bought at 40s. which now could not be got under £4 the prices having doubled, allowing at the same time for the improved size of beasts. As soon as bought, they are turned into the coarsest ground of the farm; the fatting stock being put into the after-grass, the lean ones are turned after them; if the farmer has a tract of mountain, they will be turned into that at first. They are put to hay after christmas, and kept at it till may. An acre of hay for three bullocks is reckoned a good allowance, the quantity will be from three to four tons. It is given scattered upon the ground in dry fields, till the latter end of april, or the beginning of may, when they are collected into a small space, in order for the grass elsewhere to grow. About the 10th of may they are put to grass for the summer; and in this, the method is to turn into every field the stock which they imagine will be maintained by it, and leave the whole there till fat. The Corke butchers come in july and august to make their bargains, and begin to draw in september, continuing to take them till december. Some graziers keep them with hay till the market rises, but it is not a common practice. It is thought that they begin to lose flesh about the 20th of november, and that after the 1st, nothing is gained. Average selling price, £9 10s. It vibrates from £8 to £11 10s. ANNEXED to this bullock system is that of buying in bull calves, six months old, in september and october, from 20s. to 40s. each, some to £3 these are fed in well sheltered fields with grass and hay, and sold in may and june with 20s. profit upon an average. One acre of hay will yield enough for nine calves; the proportion is, to buy a calf to every acre. Upon other parts of the farm, where calves are not fed in this manner, sheep are substituted. Much land is hired here by Tipperary farmers, who bring their sheep to it; and where this is not the case, the Limerick farmers have both coarse and rich land, which enables them to go into sheep. They keep stocks of breeding ewes. If a man has 100 ewes, he will have 100 lambs, 100 yearlings, 100 two-year olds, 100 three-year olds, selling every year 50 three-year old fat wethers, and 50 culled ewes, viz. IF a man has only rich land in those baronies, without any in Tipperary, then he keeps only bullocks regularly; but he buys in some hoggit
sheep, which he keeps a year, and sells fat. The Tipperary system is supposed to be the most profitable, for they have given more for the Limerick lands than the Limerick people themselves. Besides these methods, there is another, which is buying in cows in march, april, may, and june, at £3 to £6 each, and selling them fat with 40s. profit. This is very profitable, but subject to difficulties, for they are troublesome to pick up, and much subject to distempers. This profit is, I think, very low, so low that nothing but the ease with which grazing is carried on, could induce a man to be satisfied with it. THE size to which oxen now come upon this rich land is 5¼ cwt. twenty years ago it was 4½ cwt. the additional ¾ cwt. is owing not to any improvement in the land, or management, but of the breed. PARTICULARS of a grazing farm at Cullen. 120 acres in all. 110 bullocks. 40 lambs. 4 cows. 7 acres of meadow. ½ acre, herdsman's garden. 2 acres of orchard. £246 rent, or 41s. per acre. THE number of sheep kept in this neighbourhood has decreased, owing-to the division into smaller farms. The winter food for them in the rich tracts is grass, except in snows, when they turn them to their hay stacks, they are very little troubled with the rot. The rise in the price of wool, 5s. a stone in 30 years. There are but few dairies; the little farmers have the chief. The breed of cows is generally half english, half irish. They are kept on the poorest grounds 1½ acre, or 1frac14;, keeps a cow the year round; the usual produce is 1 cwt. of butter, and 20s. horn money, or £3 in all; the winter food hay, %frac14; of an acre to each. The calf is always reared; valued when it drops at 2s. 6d. or 3s. the medium price of a cow, £5. There have been many english bulls introduced for improving the cattle of the country, at a considerable expence, and great exertions in the breed of sheep; some persons, Mr. Dexter chiefly, have brought english rams, which they let out at seventeen guineas a season, and also at 10s. 6d. a ewe, which indicates a spirited attention. Hogs all the way from Limerick are of a very good breed, far superior to the common Irish, and the number greatly increased. RESPECTING tillage, the chief is done by little farmers, for the graziers apply themselves solely to cattle. It is entirely connected with breaking up grass for potatoes—the quantity small. 1. Grass potatoes. 2 Potatoes. 3. Bere. 4. Oats. 5. Oats, and then leave it for grass without sowing any seeds. With gentlemen it is, 1. Potatoes, 2. Ditto. 3. Wheat. 4. Oats, or english barley. 5. Oats, left smooth to grass itself.— Shame to them for being as bad farmers as the paddies! THE grass is let for the potatoe crop to the poor people, who pay from £5 to six guineas an acre for it; no manure used; nine barrels of seed at 20 stone, plant an acre; the usual season april, and the beginning of may. In planting, they dig the whole ground, except the two first sods, and when they have got seven or eight feet, form trenches in the common manner; they weed them carefully; the produce about 120 barrels per acre; price 2s. to 3s. 6d. a barrel; they pay as much rent for the second crop as the first, and it is as good, though they don't plant it, trusting to the little potatoes left in the ground, and which they spread in digging, but this is a most slovenly practice; if they were to plant the second crop it would be better than the first, provided it is as good without it. THEY do not plough the potatoe land for bere at all, but trench it in with spade and shovel, sow six bushels an acre, and get 20 barrels, at 7s. on an average. They then plough once for oats, sow six bushels, and get 16 to 20 barrels, worth 4s. a barrel on a medium, at 12 stone. The second crop of oats is as good as the first. In the gentleman's course the wheat is trenched in if the season is wet, but ploughed in if it is dry; twenty stone of seed per acre, the product ten barrels, at 20 stone, and the price 20s. Plough twice for the English barley; sow five or six bushels per acre, and get 20 barrels, 17 stone per barrel, at 8d. a stone. No lime, marle, or lime-stone gravel used, nor clover, pease, beans, or turnips sown; but enough flax is sown by every poor family for their own use; and some sell it at fairs, after scutching, at 4s. to 5s. a stone. There are many weavers about the country, who make bandle cloth, and some a yard wide, for the poor people; they live both in towns and villages. All the women spin flax. They shut up their fields for hay the beginning of june, generally mow in september, the crop three to four tons an acre, sometimes five or six. It is sold standing for 40s. an acre. TILLAGE is done with horses, four in a plough, and do half an acre a day, four or five inches deep; the price 7s. to 10s. In hiring and stocking they reckon that £3 an acre will do for a grazing farm, but much less for tillage. Leases are for thirty-one years or three lives. Land sells at twenty years purchase: there has been a fall of rents from 1772, to the American War, but since that time they have been rising. The religion all roman catholic. MUCH of the labour is done by servants hired into the house of little farmers that keep dairies, &c. Much also by cottars, who have a cabbin and an acre and half of potatoe garden, which are valued at three guineas; they have also two cows, at 50s. a cow. Three-fourths of an acre under potatoes every year, and the rest oats and flax; they get about 120 barrels an acre, which crop, with the oats, feed them the year through; they they are much more eaten than they were 20 years ago; two barrels will last a family a week as they are usually consumed. They all keep a pig, a dog, two cats, and some poultry: their circumstances are better than they were twenty years ago; their pig they sell, but they eat poultry, particularly geese. Some of them buy turf for fuel, which costs them fifteen shillings: but many depend on breaking and stealing hedge-wood; they are much given to pilfering. MANY of the poor here have no cows; there are cabbins on the road side that have no land; the inhabitants of them are called spalpeens
, who are paid for their labour in cash, by the month, &c. Some of them pay no rent at all, others 10S. a year; and these are the people who hire grass land for their potatoes; it is certain that the cottars are much better off than these spalpeens, who can get but little milk, buying it part of the summer half year only of the dairy farmers. TYTHES. Wheat, 8s. Bere, 7s. Barley, 7s. Oats, 4s. 6d. Potatoes, 11s. Meadow, 2s. 8d. Prices not in the tables
, Womens labour, reaping, 4d. Other work, 3d. Making hand turf, 6d. Farming man's wages, £3. to £4. Farming maid's ditto £1 I2s. Mowing, per acre, 2s. 6d. to 3s. in 1745, only 1s. 6d. Ditching, 9d. a perch. Double ones, 1s. 6d. seven feet wide at top, three and a half at bottom, and four deep, and they will earn 8d. a day at it. Hire of a car, 1s. 6d. a day. In 1745, it was 1s. Price of a car, £1 18s. 3d. Building a mud cabbin, £3 Stone and flare, £25 Mason's perch of stone walls for labour, 9d. six feet high complete, 16s. Oak, £4 a ton; twenty years ago, £2. Lime, 10&ftrac12;d. a barrel, burnt with culm, brought 25 miles. MR. Lloyd has worked a very great improvement of a shaking morass, which when he began was worth only 5s. an acre. The first business was banking it from a river subject to floods, with a parallel back cut, to carry off the water that came over his bank. He then carried a central drain through it and a mile beyond beyond to gain a fall. Next he subdivided it into fields, from 10 to 20 acres, by ditches planted with quick. The land was over-run with much underwood and sedgy tussocks, &c. these were all grubbed, cut up, and burned; after which cattle were put in, the improvement being finished; and it has grown better and better ever since, being now worth 30s. an acre: some of it is actually let at 38s. It was a very expensive undertaking, owing to the stream above him belonging to a neighbour, who did not second his undertaking; he was obliged to make a long bank upon this account only, partly over a turf bog, which was blown up once, but made again with great difficulty; fourteen spits deep were cleared, and a foundation of rammed clay laid: this cost £1000, it has, however, stood well since. LIME Mr. Lloyd tried in a very satisfactory experiment; he broke up one of the rich hills near Castle Lloyd, and limed half a field; afterwards upon laying the whole down, the part limed continued of a much deeper green and more luxuriant herbage than the other half. OCTOBER 10th, left Castle Lloyd, and took the road by Galbally to Mitchelstown, through a country part of it a rich grazing tract; but from near Galbally, to the Galty mountains, there are large spaces of flat lands, covered with heath and furze, that are exceedingly improveable, yet seem as neglected as if nothing could be made of them. The road leads immediately at the northern foot of the Galties, which form the most formidable and romantic boundary imaginable; the sides are almost perpendicular, and reach a heighth, which piercing the clouds, seem formed rather for the boundaries of two conflicting empires, than the property of private persons. The variety of the scenery exhibited by these mountains is great; the road, after passing some miles parallel with them, turns over a hill, a continuation of their chain, and commands an oblique view of their southern side, which has much more variety than the northern; it looks down at the same time upon a long plain, bounded by these and other mountains, several rivers winding through it, which join in the center, near Mitchelstown. I had been informed that this was a miserable place: it has at least a situation worthy of the proudest capital. UPON my arrival, Lord Kingsborough, who possesses almost the whole country, procured me the information I requested in the most liberal manner, and a residence since has enabled me to perfect it. His Lordship's vast property extends from Kildorrery to Clogheen, beyond Ballyporeen, a line of more than 16 Irish miles, and it spreads in breadth from five to ten miles. It contains every variety of land, from the fertility of grazing large bullocks to the mountain heath the cover of grouse. The profitable land lets from 8s. to 25s. an acre, but the whole does not on an average yield more than 2s. 6d. Such a field for future improvements is therefore rarely to be found. On the cold and bleak hills of Scotland, estates of greater extent may be found, but lying within twenty miles of Corke, the most southerly part of Ireland, admits a rational prophesy that it will become one of the first properties in Europe. THE size of farms held by occupying tenants is in general very small, Lord Kingsborough having released them from the bondage of the middle men. Great tracts are held in partnership; and the amount held by single farmers rises from £5 to £50 a year, with a very few large farms. THE soils are as various as in such a great extent they may be supposed: the worst is the wet morassy land, on a whitish gravel, the spontaneous growth, rushes (juncus conglomeratus)
and heath (erica vulgaris)
; this yields a scanty nourishment to cows and half-starved young cattle. Large tracts of wet land have a black peat or a turf surface; this is very reclaimable, and there are immense tracts of it. The profitable soil is in general a sandy or a gravelly loam, of a reddish brown colour, and the principal distinction is its being on lime or grit stone, the former generally the best. It declines in value from having a yellow sand or a yellow clay near the surface under it. There are tracts, of such incomparable land that I have seen very little equal to it, except in Tipperary, Limerick, and Roscommon. A deep friable loam, moist enough for the spontaneous growth to fat a bullock, and dry enough to be perfectly under command in tillage: if I was to name the characteristics of an excellent soil, I should say that
upon which you may fat an ox, and feed off a crop of turnips. By the way I recollect little or no such land in England, yet is it not uncommon in Ireland. Quarries of the finest lime-stone are found in almost every part of the estate. THE tracts of mountain are of prodigious extent; the Galties only are six or seven miles long, from one to four miles across; and more improveable upon the whole than any land I have seen, turf and limestone being on the spot, and a gentle exposure hanging to the south. In every inaccessible cliff there are mountain ash, (fraxinus excelsior)
oak, (quercus robur)
holly, (ilex aquifolium)
birch, (betula alba)
willow, (falix)
hazel, (corylus avellana)
and white thorn, (cratoegus oxyacantha)
and even to a considerable height up the mountain, which, with the many old stumps scattered about them, prove that the whole was once a forest, an observation applicable to every part of the estate. THE tillage here extends no farther than what depends on potatoes, on which root they subsist as elsewhere. They sometimes manure the grass for them, and take a second crop; after which they follow them with oats, till the soil is so exhausted as to bear no longer, when they leave it to weeds and trumpery, which vile system has spread itself so generally over all the old meadow and pasture of the estate, that it has given it a face of desolation—furze, (ulex europoeus)
broom, (spartium scoparium)
fern, (pteris aquilina)
and rushes owing to this and to neglect, occupy seven-eights of it. The melancholy appearance of the lands arising from this, which, with miserable and unplanted mounds, for fences, with no gate but a furze bush stuck in a gap, or some stones piled on each other, altogether form a scene the more dreary, as an oak, an ash or an elm, are almost as great a rarity, (save in the plantations of the present Lord) as an olive, an orange, or a mulberry. OF potatoes, eight barrels of seed plant an ncre, which yields sixty barrels, at twenty- one stone; the average price 4s. 4d. THEY lay them up in holes in the field. The second crop is generally the best. Of oats they sow two barrels, and reap from 8 to 15, There is no wheat, and very little barley. Clover and turnips, rape, beans, and pease, quite unknown. The rents are paid by cattle, and of these dairy cows are the chief stock. The little farmers manage their own; the larger ones let them to dairymen for a cwt. of butter each cow, and 12s. to 15s. horn money; but the man has a privilege of four collops, and an acre of land and cabbin to every 20 cows. The people, most attentive to their own interest, are, however, getting out of this system, from the innumerable rascalities of these dairymen; they will play twenty tricks to keep them from taking the bull, in order to have the longer season; and to force them to give down their milk, they have a very delicate custom of blowing them where «——, but I have heard of this practice in other parts.: THE winter food is straw and hay at night; not many of them are housed. In the breeding system they are very deficient. Vast number of calves are killed at two or three days old for an execrable veal they call staggering bob
, I suppose from the animal not being old enough to stand steady on its legs: they sell at 2s. or 2s. 6d. a head. A good cow sells from £5 to £6 6s. and a calf of six or eight months, at 20s. or 22s. Sheep are kept in very small numbers; a man will have two, or even one, and he thinks it worth his while to walk ten or twelve miles to a fair, with a straw band tied to the leg of the lamb, in order to sell it for 3s. 6d. an undoubted proof of the poverty of the country. Markets are crowded for this reason, for there is nothing too trifling to carry; a yard of linen, a fleece of wool, a couple of chickens, will carry an unemployed pair of hands ten miles. In the mountains are a small breed of sheep, which are as delicate mutton, when properly fattened, as the welch, and of so hardy a breed as to live upon heath, furze, &c. in winter as well as summer. Hogs are kept in such numbers that the little towns and villages swarm with them; pigs and children bask and roll about, and often resemble one another so much, that it is necessary to look twice before the human face divine
is confessed. I believe there arc more pigs in Mitchelstown than human beings, and yet propagation is the only trade that flourished here for ages. TILLAGE is done by horses; four in a plough do half an acre a day, five or six inches deep; the price 6s. to 10s. an acre. LABOUR is chiefly done in the cottar system, which has been so often explained; there are here every gradation of the lower classes, from the spalpeens, many among them strangers, who build themselves a wretched cabbin in the road, and have neither land, cattle, nor turf, rising to the regular cottar, and from him to the little joint tenant, who, united with many others, takes some large farm in partnership; still rising to the greater farmer. THE population is very great. It is but few districts in the north that would equal the proportion that holds on this estate; the cabbins are innumerable, and like most Irish cabbins, swarm with children. Wherever there are many people, and little employment, idleness and its attendants must abound. IT is not to be expected that so young a man as Lord Kingsborough, just come from the various gaiety of Italy, Paris, and London, should, in so short a space as two years, do much in a region so wild as Mitchelstown; a very short narrative, however, will convince the reader, that the time he has spent here, has not been thrown away. He found his immense property in the hands of that species of tenant which we know so little of in England, but which in Ireland have flourished almost to the destruction of the kingdom, the middle man
, whose business and whose industry consists in hiring great tracts of land as cheap as he can, and re- letting them to others as dear as he can, by which means that beautiful gradation of the pyramid, which connects the broad base of the poor people with the great nobleman they support, is broken; he deals only with his own tenant, the multitude is abandoned to the humanity and feelings of others, which to be sure may prompt a just and tender conduct; whether it does or not, let the misery and poverty of the lower classes speak, who are thus assigned over. This was the situation of nine tenths of his property. Many leases being out, he rejected the trading tenant, and let every man's land to him, who occupied it at the rent he had himself received before. During a year that I was employed in letting his farms, 1 never omitted any opportunity of confirming him in this system, as far as was in my power, from a conviction that he was equally serving himself and the public in it; he will never quit it without having reason afterwards for regret. IN a country changing from licentious barbarity into civilized order, building is an object of perhaps greater consequence than may at first be apparent. In a wild, or but half cultivated tract, with no better edifice than a mud cabbin, what are the objects that can impress a love of order on the mind of man? He must be wild as the roaming herds; savage as his rocky mountains; confusion, disorder, riot, have nothing better than himself to damage or destroy: but when edifices of a different solidity and character arise; when great sums are expended, and numbers employed to rear more expressive monuments of industry and order, it is impossible but new ideas must arise, even in the uncultivated mind; it must feel something, first to respect, and afterwards to love; gradually seeing that in proportion as the country becomes more decorated and valuable, licentiousness will be less profitable, and more odious. Mitchelstown, till his Lordship made it the place of his residence, was a den of vagabonds, thieves, rioters, and white boys; but can witness to its being now as orderly and peaceable as any other Irish town, much owing to this circumstance of building, and thereby employing such numbers of the people. Lord Kingsborough, in a short space of time, has raised considerable edifices; a large mansion for himself, beautifully situated on a bold rock, the edge of a declivity, at the bottom of which is a river, and commanding a large tract of country, with as fine a boundary of mountain as I have seen; a quadrangle of offices; a garden of five English acres, surrounded with a wall, hot houses, &c. Besides this, three good stone and slate houses upon three farms, and engaged for three others, more considerable, which are begun; others repaired, and several cabbins built substantially. So naked a country as he found his estate, called for other exertions to invoke the Dryades, it was necessary to plant, and they must be coy nymphs indeed if they are not in a few years propitious to him. He brought a skilful nurseryman from England, and formed twelve acres of nursery. It begins to shew itself; above ten thousand perch of hedges are made, planted with quick and trees; and several acres, securely inclosed on advantageous spots, and filled with young and thriving plantations. Trees were given, gratis, to the tenantry, and premiums begun for those who plant most, and preserve them best, besides fourscore pounds a year offered for a variety of improvements in agriculture the most wanted upon the estate. MEN, who from long possession of landed property, become gradually convinced of the importance of attending to it, may at last work some improvements without meriting any considerable portion of praise; but that a young man, warm from pleasure, should do it, has a much superior claim. Lord Kingsborough has, in this respect, a great deal of merit; and for the sake both of himself and his country, 1 heartily wish he may steadily
persevere in that line of conduct which his understanding has once told him, and must continue to tell him, is so greatly for the advantage os himself, his family and the publick. IT is not uncommon, especially in mountainous countries, to find objects that much deserve the attention of travellers intirely neglected by them. There are a few instances of this upon Lord Kingsborough's estate, in the neighbourhood of Mitchelstown; the first I shall mention, is a cave at Skeheenrinky, on the road between Cahir and that place: the opening to it is a cleft of rock in a lime stone hill, so narrow as to be difficult to get into it. I descended by a ladder of about twenty steps, and then found myself in a vault of a hundred feet long, and fifty or sixty high: a small hole, on the left, leads from this a winding course of I believe not less than half an Irish mile, exhibiting a variety that struck me much. In some places the cavity in the rock is so large, that when well lighted up by candles, (not flambeaux, Lord Kingsborough once shewed it me with them, and we found their smoak troublesome) it takes the appearance of a vaulted cathedral, supported by massy columns. The walls, ceiling, floor, and pillars, are by turns composed of every fantastic form; and often of very beautiful incrustations of spar, some of which glitter so much, that it seems powdered with diamonds, and in others the ceiling is formed of that sort which has so near a resemblance to a cauliflower. The spar formed into columns by the dropping of water has taken some very regular forms; but others are different, folded in plaits of light drapery, which hang from their support in a very pleasing manner. The angles of the walls seem fringed with isicles. One very long branch of the cave, which turns to the north, is in some places so narrow and low, that one crawls into it, when it suddenly breaks into large vaulted spaces, in a thousand forms. The spar in all this cave is very brilliant, and almost equal to Bristol stone. For several hundred yards in the larger branch, there is a deep water at the bottom of the declivity to the right, which the common people call the river. A part of the way is over a sort of potter's clay, which moulds into any form, and is of a brown colour: a very different soil from any in the neighbouring country. I have seen the famous cave in the Peak, but think it inferior to this: and Lord Kingsborough, who has viewed the Grot d'Aucel in Burgundy, says that it is not to be compared with it. BUT the commanding region of the Galties deserves more attention. Those who are fond of scenes in which nature reigns in all her wild magnificence, should visit this stupendous chain. It consists of many vast mountains, thrown together in an assemblage of the most interesting features, from boldness and height of the declivities, freedom of outline, and variety of parts; filling a space of about six miles by three or four. Galtymore is the highest point, and rises like the lord and father of the surrounding progeny. From the top you look down upon a great extent of mountain, which shelves away from him to the south, east, and west; but to the north, the ridge is almost a perpendicular declivity. On that side the famous golden vale of Limerick and Tipperary spreads a rich level to the eye, bounded by the mountains or Clare, King's and Queen's counties, with the course of the Shannon, for many miles below Limerick. To the south you look over alternate ridges of mountains, which rise one beyond another, till in a clear day the eye meets the ocean near Dungarvon. The mountains of Waterford and Knockmaldown fill up the space to the south-east. The western is the most extensive view; for nothing stops the eye till Mangerton and Macgilly Cuddy's Reeks point out the spot where Killarney's lake calls for a farther excursion. The prospect extends into eight counties, Corke, Kerry, Waterford, Limerick, Clare, Queen's, Tipperary, King's. A little to the west of this proud summit, below it in a very extraordinary hollow, is a circular lake of two acres, reported to be unfathomable. The descriptions which I have read of the craters of exhausted volcanoes, leave very little doubt of this being one; and the conical regularity of the summit of Galtymore, speaks the same language. East of this respectable
hill, to use Sir William Hamilton's language, is a declivity of about one quarter of a mile, and there Galtybeg rises in a yet more regular cone, and between the two hills is another lake, which from position seems to have been once the crater which threw up Galtybeg, as the first mentioned was the origin of Galtymore. Beyond the former hill is a third lake, and east of that another hill; I was told of a fourth, with another corresponding mountain. It is only the mere summit of these mountains which rise above the lakes. Speaking of them below
, they may be said to be on the tops of the hills; they are all of them at the bottom of an almost regularly circular hollow. On the side, next the mountain top, are walls of perpendicular rocks, in regular strata, and some of them piled on each other, with an appearance pf art rather than nature. In these rocks the eagles, which are seen in numbers on the Galties, have their nests. Supposing the mountains to be of volcanic origin, and these lakes the craters, of which I have not a doubt; they are objects of the greatest curiosity, for there is an unusual regularity in every considerable summit having its corresponding crater; but without this circumstance the scenery is interesting in a very great degree. The mountain summits, which are often wrapped in the clouds, at other times exhibit the freest outline; the immense scoop'd hollows which sink at your feet, declivities of so vast a depth as to give one terror to look down; with the unusual forms of the lower region of hills, particularly Bull-hill and Round-hill, each a mile over, yet rising out of circular vales, with the regularity of semi-globes, unite upon the whole, to exhibit a scenery to the eye, in which the parts arc of a magnitude so commanding; a character so interesting, and a variety so striking, that they well deserve to be examined by every curious traveller. NOR are these immense outlines the whole of what is to be seen in this great range of mountains. Every Glen has its beauties; there is a considerable mountain river, or rather torrent, in every one of them; but the greatest are the Funcheon, between Sefang and Galtymore. The Lime- stone river, between Galtymore and Round-hill, and the Grouse river, between Coolegarranroe, and Mr. O'Callaghan's mountain; these present to the eye, for a tract of about three miles, every variety that rock, water, and mountain can give, thrown into all the fantastic forms which art may attempt in ornamented grounds, but always fails in. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the water, when not discoloured by rain, its lucid transparency shews, at considerable depths, every pebble no bigger than a pin, every rocky bason alive with trout and eels, that play and dash among the rocks, as if endowed with that native vigor which animate, in a superior degree, every inhabitant of the mountains, from the bounding red deer, and the soaring eagle, down even to the fishes of the brook. Every five minutes you have a water- fall in these glens, which in any other region, would stop every traveller to admire it. Sometimes the vale takes a gentler declivity, and presents to the eye, at one stroke, twenty or thirty falls, which render the scenery all alive with the motion; the rocks are tossed about in the wildest confusion, and the torrent bursts by turns from above, beneath, and under them; while the back ground is always filled up with the mountains which stretch around. IN the western glen is the finest cascade in all the Galties; there are two falls, with a bason in the rock between, but from some points of view they appear one; the rock over which the water tumbles is about sixty-feet high. A good line in which to view these objects is either to take the Killarney and Mallow road, to Mitchelstown, and from thence by Lord Kingsborough's new one, to Skeheenrinky, there to take one of the glens, to Galty-beg, and Galty-more, and return to Mitchelstown by the Wolf's track, Templehill, and the Waterfall: or, if the Cork road is travelling, to make Dobbin's inn, at Ballyporeen, the head quarters, and view them from thence.Rent of a cabbin and an acre
1
10
0
Two cows
3
0
0
Hay for ditto, one ton
1
15
0
Tythe
0
4
0
Hearth money
0
2
0
One stone of wool a year for the man, one
for the woman, and two stones for three
children; this is what they ought to have,
but the fact does not exceed two stone,
one at 17s. and one at 8s.1
5
0
Tools
0
5
0
Turf, whether bought or in their own labour
1
0
0
Flax seed, five or six pottles, at 8d.
0
3
6
Breaking and scutching, eight stone, at 10d.
0
6
8
Heckling ditto, at 10d.
0
6
8
Weaving 336 bandles, at 1s. 1d. a score
0
16
6
N. B. After heckling 56 lb. flax, the rest
is tow, which they spin for bags, &c.
Two pair of brogues, 9s. 9d. and 4 pair
soles, 1s. 10d. each, 7s. 4d.0
17
1
A pair of woman's shoes, 3s. 3d. and a pair
of soles, 1s. 5d.0
4
8
A boy of fourteen, two pair, at 2s. 2d. soles,
1s. 1d.0
3
3
A hat, 2s. 8d. the boy one, 1s. 6d.
0
4
2
£
12
3
6
His receipt.
Deduct from
—
365
days
Sundays
52
Holyday
1
Bad weather
10
Own work
48
—
111
Remain at 5d.
254
5
5
10
The boy of twelve or fourteen, three-pence
halfpenny a day3
14
1
Two pigs, one eat, the other sold for
0
15
0
Two calves, one 20s. one 10s.
1
10
0
£
11
4
11
N. B. Chickens and ducks pay for salt, soap and candles, and they eat the geese.
BUILDING.
A mud cabbin, £4. Ditto of stone and slate, £20
A dry wall, five feet high, building
0
1
3
Labour coping
0
0
6
Dashing
0
0
2
Lime, two barrels
0
1
4
Sand
0
0
2
£.
0
3
5
Besides carting the stones, the mason's perch of
house walling, 1s. 6d. All materials laid at
the spot. Oak bark, £8 to £9 a ton. Cars
are made by hatchet men, at 6d. a day.Timber and labour of one
0
10
0
Iron
0
10
0
£.
1
0
0
Fifty fat wethers
57
0
0
Fifty culled ewes, at 18s.
45
0
0
Four hundred fleeces, 133 stone, at 18s.
119
14
0
£.
221
14
0
50 wethers, at 25s.
62
10
0
50 culled ewes, fat, 23s.
57
10
0
400 fleeces, 133 stone, at 15s.
99
15
0
£. 219
15
0
Calculation of the profit of grazing bullocks.
One bullock bought in at
6
0
0
Rent of one acre and one-third
2
0
0
County cess, at 9d.
0
1
0
Mowing, making, carting, and stacking hay
0
3
0
Herdsmen, at £12 a year
0
2
0
Losses on stock, ½ per cent
0
9
7
£.
8
6
6
Interest of £8 at 6 per cent
0
9
7
£.
8
16
1
PRODUCE.Sale of a bullock
9
0
0
Value of the after-grass of one third of an acre
0
3
4
£.
9
3
4
Expences
8
16
1
Profit on one acre and one-third
0
7
3
Which is per acre
£.
0
5
6
Expences of an acre.
Rent
6
0
0
Nine barrels of seed, at 3s.
1
7
0
Planting, and digging, 16 men, at 8d.
0
10
8
Planting, 12 children, at 4d.
0
4
0
0
14
8
Trenching, 12 men
0
8
0
Cutting sets, eight women, at 4d.
0
2
8
Second trenching, six men
0
4
0
———
1
9
4
£.
8
16
4
Digging out, twenty-six men, at 8d.
0
17
4
Picking, twelve women
0
4
0
Carrying home, two horses
0
3
0
Tythe
0
11
0
£.
10
11
8
PRODUCE.One hundred and twenty, at 3s.
18
0
0
Expenses
10
11
8
Profit
£.
7
8
4
Prime cost, 1s. 2½ per barrel.
Cottar's account.
Cabbin and ½ acre
3
8
3
Grass of two cows
5
0
0
Turf
0
15
0
Tythe
0
11
0
Seed flax, four pottles
0
3
4
20
bandles of cloth for the man
}
0
3
0
20
— — — — — for the woman
47
— — — — — for three children
7
weaving, at ¼
N. B. Heckled &c. by themselves.
One stone of wool for the whole family
0
17
0
Weaving ditto
0
3
4
Shoes
0
10
0
Hats
0
1
0
Hearth money
0
2
0
Duties to the priest.
Two confessions
0
2
2
A christening
0
1
6
Sundries
0
1
4
————
0
5
0
£
11
18
11
His receipt.
Days
365
Sundays
52
Holydays
30
Bad weather
10
His own garden
20
——
112
253
at 5d.
5
5
5
The eldest child, 10 or 12 years old, 2d.
a day for 253 days2
2
1
Other earnings of the family
1
0
0
A pig, bought at 7s. sold at 47s.
2
0
0
Poultry
0
10
0
One calf
0
15
0
Two cwt. of butter
4
0
0
15
12
6
Planting, fourteen men, at 6½d.
0
7
7
Trenching, fourteen ditto
0
7
7
Leading the dung
1
0
0
Spreading, six men
0
3
3
Eight barrels, seed
1
14
8
Weeding by the women
0
0
0
Taking up, sixty men
1
12
6
Carting home, &c.
0
15
0
£.
6
0
7
PRODUCE.Sixty, at 4s. 4d.
13
0
0
Expenses
6
0
7
£.
6
19
5
Prime cost, 2s. a barrel.
Arthur Young, A Tour in Ireland, made in the years 1776, 1777, and 1778 (London: T. Cadell, 1780)