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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



RE LAND AND IRISH AGRICULTURE. 



In the month of August, 1857, 1 had again the 

 pleasure to visit the sister country, and last year 

 I attended tlie meeting of the Royal Agricultural 

 Improvement Society of Ireland. It was one of those 

 visits which to me is of the greatest interest, and gives 

 me the liveliest gratification. One never tires of en- 

 gagements which open out to us means of usefulness 

 in our own way, and where a country's welfare is the 

 ohject and the permanent improvement of its agriculture 

 the aim and result. I say one never tires in these pur- 

 suits ; and they ought to be aided by the most vigilant 

 and persevering endeavours of every intelligent agricul- 

 turist. Nothing can withstand the world's competition, 

 in a country like ours, but the progressive improvement 

 of its agriculture. The superiority of our cattle, 

 sheep, horses, and other domestic animals, the extra 

 produce, weight, and quality of our grain and root crops 

 are alone a guarantee for the prosperity of our agri- 

 culture. To attain, uphold, and excel in these depart- 

 ments is worthy the best efforts of every practical far- 

 mer, and to promote these efforts, and to bring before 

 practical farmers every improvement which has lieen 

 effected either in the breeding or fattening of farm stock, 

 the culture of the soil, the selections and stocks of 

 modern varieties of grain and seeds, of manures and 

 rotations of cropping, or again of the vast improveme s 

 in agricultural implements and machinery, is the main 

 object of agricultural societies ; and to a man ever 

 anxious to promote the best interests of his own depart- 

 ment of business, it is a source of great satisfaction 

 thus to be enabled to give his aid on such highly im- 

 portant occasions. 



j\Iy object in giving "jottings from my note-book" taken 

 on my journey from Dublin to Londonderry, is to call 

 attention to many plain facts, many notices of customs, 

 many practices in business, with the view of showing 

 that errors in practice abound, and that with common 

 attention and care great improvements may be made 

 without turning everthing " tojisy turvey" or even in- 

 terfering with the present very unsatisfactory system of 

 occupation. I wish to show things as they are, and in 

 a subsequent paper or two to suggest how these small 

 farms, these inadequate occupations for a country's real 

 good, can be much benefited by an improved and in- 

 expensive mode of culture and cropping. 



Dublin, August 12th, 18.iS.— Left by the 8-30 train 

 for Drogheda ; took a convenient seat in the coupe, in 

 order to view the country to the greatest advantage on 

 passing along. For some time we pass by the coa^t 

 along through a flat country, with here and there a 

 pretty inlet or small bay : 1 am surprised to find the crops 

 so backward, the hirvest in England being nearly com- 

 pleted ; they certainly are much exposerl to cold and 

 stormy winds from the sea, and hence their present 

 green and backward state : potatoes also backward ; 

 land not good. Pass an old castle to the left; now pass- 



ing thro'igh cuttings ; crops all in reality green, no ap- 

 pearance of ripening yet. Arrive at Skerries Station ; 

 soil stiff clay, badly farmed, the crops chiefly oats ; 

 pastures all sorts of weeds ; again come upon the ever- 

 lasting rag-wort, the pest of Irish grazing ; real Irish 

 farms, farms apparently very small and sadly done: 

 keep along the coast ; holdings very small evidently. 

 Now at Balbriggan Station, famed for its peculiar manu- 

 facture of fine woollen stockings, unbleached; pass 

 Martello Towers along the coast ; potato crops good ; 

 fine park to our left. Now at Gormanston Station : lands 

 very weedy, particularly the small grass pastures, full 

 of rag-wort ; hay stacked in small cobs, after the 

 French fashion, and tied around and fastened down with 

 hay-bands and stakes, a very prejudicial practice which 

 cannot be too strongly condemned : what would our 

 metropolitan hay dealers say to such a practice ? Lay- 

 town Station : farming still indifferently carried out, 

 but being all along by a cold and stormy sea coast it 

 permits some palliation ; see no sheep anywhere ; but 

 as for the grass lands, they appear to lay themselves 

 down to pastures without leave or licence of the occu- 

 piers, ht'nce they are covered with almost every kind 

 of weed known to infest grass lands ; with much 

 pleasure I notice some better farming to our left; pretty 

 view to the right ; see some short-horn cattle ; we pre- 

 sently arrive upon a good farm to the right having a 

 capital herd of shorthorns grazing upon it. Arrive at 

 Drogheda. Was greatly interested in viewing in 

 the distance the site of the battle-field of the 

 Boyne, the deciding engagement which established 

 protestanism in these realms by the defeat of James II., 

 and the elcvition to the throne of William III. The 

 battle, though so very important in its results, was by 

 no means a destructive one, the victors only losing 400 

 men, and the vanquished about 1,000; not like the 

 dreadful massacre of the inhabitants of Drogheda, 

 ordered by Cromwell, in 1G40, which lasted five days. 

 Here is one of the most magnificent railway-bridges 

 known. We cross at a very high elevation on arches of 

 immense span, and have a fine view of a fine town, con- 

 taining near 20,000 inhabitants. 



The soil along our route appears similar in character 

 to that along the route described in my first paper to 

 Waterford, being clay mixed with pebble stones. The 

 clay is of a good depth, and capable of bearing fine crops 

 under good cultivation. Hay is all out yet ; much in 

 swathe ; none carted. The land now, as we pass along, 

 is in good staple, but badly managtd ; the crops back- 

 ward, some quite green ; fields all small ; division fences 

 here of gorse, small banks are general. The holdings 

 must be all small ; we see no farm-buildings nor farm- 

 houses. We roll on and on, and still the same fields, 

 small crops, various and backward, but few indeed to be 

 called good ; neither fertility nor cleanliness cared for. 

 What can be done to improve this state of things .' One 



