^ Survey of the County of Kil/^enny, Febt 



* Th-; vicinity of markets, the quality of foil, and the difference 

 of expofure, determine farmers in the choice of fuch a mode of cul- 

 ture as appears to them bell adapted to their fituation : but, applying 

 their mind folely to one branch of rural economy, they are apt 

 to ncgleft every other, which ought to accompany it, and be made 

 fubfervient : the cultivator, whofe obje«5l is to pay his rent by com, 

 difregards the management of flock, and confequently neither 

 prepares his ground in the bell manner for wheat and barley, by 

 intermediate crops of green food, nor adds to his exhaufled fields 

 new fources of fertility by the manure of his 3'-ards : even when 

 one fpecies of corn appears to him mod profitable, all other pro- 

 ducls of the foil are defplfed ; if wheat can be railed by any means, 

 no matter whether the fpring corn be produdive or not ; and where 

 the fituation feems to fait better, the more lazy occupation of fuch 

 dairies as are never fupplied with artificial grafl'es, or even with 

 winter provender, where cattle have neither flraw nor fhelter, the 

 plough is laid afide, as an inftrument almoU ufejefs, and not likely, 

 in any refj^eft, to increafe the quantity of butter or of pork. 



' Thefe refieflions areflrongly exemplified in this county, whofe 

 fiirface is principally occupied in three different ways : in one part, 

 the farmer calculates upon paying his rent by wheat alone, in an- 

 other by oats, and in a third by the produce of a dairy. The befl 

 ground, the greatefl part of which has a limeflone bottom, is dedi- • 

 cated to wheat ; this culture is the predominant obje6l in the cen- 

 tral and wellern parts of Gowran, in many farms near Kilkenny, 

 in the fouthern portion of Crannagh, the whole of Shillelogher, in 

 the greateft part of Kells, including the liberties of Callan, and in 

 the nortliern fide of Knocktopher ; it is more partially cultivated 

 in th^ weftern pat* of Fafiadinan, in the lower grounds of Galmoy 

 and in the adjoining part of Crannagh ; as well as in the fouth of 

 Iverk, and part of Idaugh. The culture of wheat has latterly ex- 

 tended up forae of the hills of Idaugh and Knocktopher, and other 

 liigh grounds, where, a few years ago, oats were the only grain 

 fown: ftiil, however, the more mountainy tracls of Iverk, L'augh, 

 and Gowran, together v.'ith fome of Crannagh, and of the northern 

 part of the county are, as far as they are tilled, devoted to the cul- 

 ture of no crop but oats. 



* There are two diflrifts peculiarly given up to the dairy ; one 

 includes that portion of the county ufually called the Welch moun- 

 tains, forming the eaflcrn and fouthern part of Knocktopher, and 

 running into the barony of Idangh, covering a fpace of about eight 

 or nine miles in length, and from four to five in breadth; the other 

 comprehends the principal part of the extenfive pariibes of Comer 

 and Mucullee, with fome lands to the fouth of them, compriling 

 about 30,000 acres. 



* ^uch of this county having been, from time immemorial, fnb- 



jedled 



