The Country Gentlemaiis Magazine 



199 



AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS IN IRELAND. 



IT is ahvays a pleasing duty to chronicle 

 the advance of agriculture, and espe- 

 cially that of Ireland, because following 

 in the train of the progressive improvements 

 of rural pursuits are benefits of incalculable 

 good to the country in general. In Ireland, 

 at the present time, agriculture may be said 

 to be awakening to energy. The inventive 

 genius which has favoured the present gene- 

 ration of agriculturists in the matter of im- 

 proved machinery, has not been without its 

 due effect upon our brethren across St George's 

 Channel. Under the progressive agency of 

 the E-oyal Irish Society, Ireland possesses 

 some excellent "crack" stock, and good 

 plump animals are seen roaming over its 

 rich pasture land; while the Land Act is 

 gradually unfolding to the outward world the 

 defective machinery which united the interests 

 of landlord and tenant. Irish agriculture, 

 therefore, is beginning to throw off the inert- 

 ness which formerly hung about it ; and, 

 from the pleasing accounts which reach us 

 from nearly every part of the country, we 

 observe the results of untrammelled action 

 in the elevation of the cultivators of the 

 soil, and the blending of the interests of 

 owner and occupier. 



The Commissioners of Public Works, in 

 whose hands are vested the power of making 

 grants of public money under the Land Act, 

 have just issued their report on the financial 

 year, 1871-72. In that year, they state, 

 advances reaching a total of ;^i6i,202 were 

 made. Of this sum, ^82,555 were granted 

 to proprietors who improved their estates 

 under the Lands Improvement Act ; and 

 ;^45,83o to tenant-farmers to enable them to 

 purchase their holdings under the provisions 

 of the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1870. 

 The total extent of land purchased with the 

 aid of loans from the Board of Public Works, 

 since the Act passed, is set down at 5 5 64 acres; 

 the annual rent, ^3909 ; the purchase money, 

 ^89,148; and the total amount advanced to 



tenants buying up their holdings at ;^56,549. 

 It is stated as a fact of some significance, that 

 under the forty-second section of the Act, 

 which provides for advances to landlords to 

 enable them to discharge a tenant's claims for 

 compensation for improvements, there had 

 been, up to the end of May, only two applica- 

 tions. This, of course, is, to a certain ex- 

 tent, a result of the purchase of farms by 

 tenant-farmers, but doubtless, to a greater ex- 

 tent, the application by the landlord of his 

 own capital to improving his estate ; and the 

 latter would seem to be more generally the 

 cause from the fact, as stated above, that no 

 less than ^82,555 were demanded by pro- 

 prietors for the improvement of their estates. 



The reports of the various inspectors 

 throughout the country are exceedingly in- 

 teresting, and it will not be out of place to 

 reproduce extracts indicating, as they do, the 

 working of the Land Act. The first report, 

 from Mr W. Sidney Cox, inspector for 

 Limerick and neighbouring counties, says : — 

 "In 1870 I certified for works executed to 

 the value of ^10,359 ; but in 1871 for only 

 £66']!. I account for this difference in two 

 ways : — First, and principally, I attribute it to 

 the Land Act of 1870, which has very much 

 deterred landlords from seeking for loans to 

 be apphed to properties in the occupation of 

 tenants ; and, secondly, to the greatly ad- 

 vanced value of labour, it being impossible in 

 some districts to obtain a couple of dozen 

 labourers at any such price as would render 

 land improvement works a profitable invest- 

 ment of capital." Mr J. Fishbourne, in- 

 spector for Carlow, &c., also says : — " La- 

 bourers are not now plenty ; their wages have 

 increased to nearly double what they were 

 twelve years ago ; the price of the necessaries 

 of life has also increased, and wages of persons 

 generally throughout Ireland have increased." 



The account from Mr I. Jocelyn Poe, in- 

 spector for Tipperary and Clare, is more 

 favourable. He says: — "The applica- 



