THE I'ARMER'S MAGAZINK. 



435 



he has made on his pro[)erlies are the admiration 

 and wonder of the whole country. Himself the 

 heir of an ancient Scottish family, and the owner of 

 other large estates, he was well known as a first- 

 rate agriculturist, and for the improvements effected 

 on his estates. As he has been by far the largest 

 purchaser of Irish properties in the Encumbered 

 Estates Court, so he has spared no expense in their 

 improvement. Plans skilfully matured have been 

 carried out with great vigour; thousands of la- 

 bourers have been employed, and an example shown 

 of what can be effected on the Irish soil by an out- 

 lay of capital, directed by skill, prudence, and 

 energy. As Mr. Miller purchased for Mr. Pollok 

 nearly the whole of his large properties, he thought 

 it only right to state thus much, and that Mr. Pol- 

 lok, who is now letting his improved farms well, 

 deserves the approbation of the country. Near 

 Tuam are some English yeomen, settled on small 

 properties bought by them. Fi'om Belmulletto the 

 Killeries, on the Mayo coast, are some Scotchmen, 

 who farm very extensively, and stewards having 

 charge of large properties. West Highland, Kyloes, 

 and Cheviot sheep have been introduced v/ith ad- 

 vantage : the latter is a larger and finer animal than 

 those in its native country. There is a great want 

 of local markets in this district of Mayo, for while 

 oats are always saleable, fat sheep and stall-ied 

 cattle are often unsaleable ; and the whole of Con- 

 naught is sadly deficient in railway accommodation. 

 The Midland Great Western Railway only supplies 

 a very small portion of the southern part of the 

 province, while to the east the nearest railway sta- 

 tions are at Longford, Cavan, and Enniskillen. 

 This is a serious evil, and has retarded the develop- 

 ment of the province. It is in the province of 

 Leinster where the greatest number of Scotch far- 

 mers are located. There are numbers of them in 

 Louth, Longford, Meath, Dublin, Westmeath, 

 Wicklow, Wexford, Carlow, Kilkenny, King's and 

 Queen's Counties ; but it is in Kildare where the 

 largest groups are located. There are almost forty 

 Scotch farmers in the vicinity of Athy, the country 

 round which now looks like a well-cultivated Scotch 

 district. In the province of Munster there are 

 many Scotch and English farmers and proprietors, 

 agents and agriculturists — not a few in Kerry and 

 Waterford, but many more in Clare, Limerick, 

 Cork, and Tipperary. The golden vale stretching 

 through part of Tipperary and Limerick is the 

 richest grazing land in the kingdom. The pro- 

 vinces of Leinster, Munster, and Ulster, are well 

 circumstanced as to railway communication. When 

 the lines to Donaghadee on the one side of the 

 channel, and to Portpalrick on the other, are 

 finished, passages between Edinburgh and Glasgow, 

 and Dublin may be made in ten or twelve hours, 



while at present it takes twenty-two hours between 

 the lime of posting a letter in Dublin to its delivery 

 in Edinburgh, via Holyhead. The detention of the 

 mails at Belfast is disgraceful to the country. The 

 influence which the example of 700 to 800 intelli- 

 gent Scotch and English farmers have had in pro- 

 moting the agricultural improvement of the coun- 

 try can hardly be over-es'dinated. Their farms are 

 generally recognized by the intelligent traveller. 

 They have given a stimulus to all agricultural ope- 

 rations. Landlords and Irish farmers have been 

 equally desirous of seeing these operations. In one 

 district a Scotch gentleman, who is also an excel- 

 lent agriculturist, took a large farm, and had an 

 excellent crop of turnips the first year. In that 

 locahty it was not believed that a turnip could be 

 grown much larger than a potato, and it was often 

 impossible to see the crop from the luxuriance of 

 the weeds which hid them. Irish farmers, and even 

 some landlords, came from the surrounding dis- 

 trict to see the crop, and were astonished at 

 the bulk of it, as well as the mode of culture; and 

 the example of good husbandry thus shown has 

 been largely followed. In another county an in- 

 telhgent Scotch farmer took a large farm, the soil 

 of which was very deep, but the surface exhausted. 

 The Irish farmers never ploughed deeper than five 

 inches. This gentleman went deep into the soil, 

 turning over a furrow of ten to fourteen inches. 

 He only used three cwt. of Peruvian guano to the 

 Irish acre for his turnip crop, and the produce was 

 the largest and the heaviest in the county. Here 

 was another example not only of large crops, but 

 of the cheap and simple method of renovating, by 

 deep ploughing, the worn-out lands. Sometimes 

 the people would say, "Well, the ground pro- 

 duces these fine crops to you Scotchmen, but it 

 will not do so to us." But the examples shown 

 have been taken, and marked improvements 

 have taken place. Large quantities of Peruvian 

 guano, crushed bones, biphosphate of lime, and 

 artificial manures are now being used, and have 

 found their way into the most remote districts. 

 There are, however, still some remaining drawbacks 

 to the settlement of Scotch and English farmers, 

 which time can only remove, for many of the Irish 

 landlords have not placed themselves in the same 

 inteUigent position to their tenants as the English 

 and Scotch proprietors have done. In Great 

 Britain the landed gentry, at their own expense, 

 erect proper dwelling-houses and farm offices, 

 enclose, fence, and drain the lands : they exercise 

 great care in the selection of a tenant, and he enters 

 into a farm ready for his commencing operations. 

 In Scotland, if the house, offices, or farm be in bad 

 repair, the law gives the new tenant a very sum- 

 mary mode of compelling the landlord to put them 



