478 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



specify may be truly called mountain bog, being 

 formed on and near the summits of some of our 

 highest mountains, especially those which are 

 situated in the northern counties, and the counties 

 of Dublin and Wicklow, which reach elevations 

 above the sea varying from 1,000 to 2,000 feet and 

 up\vards. The tops of the higher mountains in the 

 southern and western counties are of a drier nature^ 

 and produce only a scanty vegetation, as Neptrin 

 in the county Mayo, Carran Tual in the county 

 Kerry, the Galtees and Knockmeildown ranges in 

 the county Tipperary, 



The depth of this mountain bog varies from 2 to 

 12 feet or more, as mentioned by Colonel Portlock 

 in " Memoir of Ordnance Survey of County Lon- 

 donderry," to be the depth of the bog on Knock- 

 layd, at an elevation of 1,685 feet, which I have 

 seen and examined. Savvel mountain, in county 

 Londonderry, has also deep bog near to its summit, 

 which is 2,000 feet high, besides Djoice mountain 

 in county Wicklow, and most of the Dublin moun- 

 tains afford examples of deep bog on or near their 

 summits. It varies much both in colour and dif- 

 ferent states of compression and decomposition, 



being sometimes brown, soft, and fibrous, and at 

 others black and very hard, although the plants 

 which form it are few, and the same species in most 

 instances. Here the Sphagnums do not enter so 

 largely into the mass as they do lower down, and 

 their places are in a great measure supplied by the 

 grey moss, Racomitrium lanuginosum, and Ceno- 

 myce rangiferina, which together make up nearly 

 one-half of the whole. Eriophorum angustifolium 

 and E. vaginatum are the Phanerogamic plants, 

 which bind the Cryptogamic together with their 

 creeping roots, particularly the former species. I 

 have occasionally seen great patches of Luzula syl- 

 vatica growing in these localities, and entering 

 largely into the composition of the peat, which is 

 always soft, brown, and fibrous, when that is the case. 

 Such are the observations I have been able to 

 make on the plants from which our vast extent of 

 peat bogs have been mainly formed, after having 

 had opportunities of examining them, such as few 

 men have had, during the last 25 years, partly 

 whilst in connection with the Ordnance Survey of 

 Ireland, and partly whilst executing some of the 

 duties of my present office. 



FRANCE AS A COMPETING COUNTRY IN THE GROWTH OF CORN. 



In a recent number we drew attention to a decree 

 of His Imperial Majesty of France, dated from 

 the Camp at Chalons, extending to the year 1858 

 the restrictive laws and regulations which for the last 

 seven years had closed the French frontiers to the expor- 

 tation of agricultural produce, whilst foreign kindred 

 commodities had free access to tlie French markets, 

 there to compete with tlie produce of native capi- 

 tal and industry. We demonstrated that such a 

 measui-e, harsh and unjust as it may appear, was not 

 likely to exert any great amount of influence on the 

 price of corn, inasmuch as foreign merchants would he 

 enticed to send their goods to France only when the 

 market w;is sufficiently buoyant to warrant an expecta- 

 tion of profit. Foreign competition cannot, then, 

 induce lower prices aiter a certain limit has been 

 passed — that limit being the lowest price at which im- 

 portation can pay. 



Agricultural statistics have proved so fallacious in 

 France, on the own-showing of those who computed 

 the figures — so little care was taken to prove their ac- 

 curacy, many of the items being merely laid at a wild 

 guess — that the government, mistrusting such uncer- 

 tain data, have preferred to let things have their own 

 course ; commercial feeling being, after all, one of 

 the most accurate tests of the real position of a country, 

 as regards stocks of any kind. 



The doubt was whether the last harvest was in reality 

 so bountiful as had been surmised. The continually 

 drooping prices on the principal markets of agricultural 



produce, coupled with the loud complaints of the far- 

 mers Tvho sold their corn at a loss, first led the govern- 

 ment to declare, in the official Moniteiir, that there 

 was a possibility of tlieir relaxing the prohibition to 

 export. And, notwithstanding this gleam of hope, prices 

 continuing to fall, we have now heard Irom Paris that 

 the prohibition is finally raised, and that corn, flour, 

 potatoes, and chestnuts may be exported. 



It was, then, evident that the low prices which have 

 led to this measure were not the result of foreign com- 

 petition ; for the limit at which that competition was 

 possible had long been passed. Such a state of things 

 could only result from an extraoi'dinarily abun- 

 dant harvest, in which case the opening of the ports 

 became not only a matter of sound policy, but also one 

 of sheer necessity. We say of necessi ty, for there is 

 this i^eculiarly providential fact connected with the 

 staple food of mankind, that in some measure, like the 

 manna of old, corn cannot be kept sound any lengthened 

 period of time. It is in vain that leai'ned men have 

 lately taxed their ingenuity in finding the means of 

 preserving it from decay in sufficient quantities to form 

 a reserve provision for years of scarcity. 



However much we approve of this freedom being at 

 last granted to French agriculture, we must at the 

 same time lament that abnormal state of things 

 which results from the power of a single individual, 

 Emperor though he be, to disturb at his will, and with- 

 out a single minute's notice, so vast an interest as the 

 corn trade — prohibiting to-day, setting free the next — 



