58 Sfdtc Aid to AgHctdture in Ireland. 



agriculture in these "congested districts'" has been much 

 complicated by this legislation. It is, perhai:s, well to state for 

 the information of readers unacquainted with them that the 

 term " congested district " has a definite and technical signifi- 

 cance. A congested district in Ireland is determined chiefly by 

 two factors : firstly, of course, by the population, but more 

 particularly by the nature of the land from which the people 

 in the district seek to obtain their subsistence. A typical 

 congested " holding " consists in many cases of a tract of land 

 of a boggy or rocky nature and of little agricultural value, 

 but including a small cultivable portion, making in all a com- 

 paratively large farm of which only a small proportion is really 

 suitable for farming. On the other hand, many of the holdings 

 are uneconomic not in virtue of the quality of the soil or its 

 unfitness for cultivation, but because each patch of land is 

 too small to " maintain its man." Some of these " farms " 

 are split up and sub-divided to quite an amazing degree so 

 that one holder may have a dozen or more different plots none 

 of which are fenced off from his neighbours'. 



When Mr. Arthur Balfour brought the Congested Districts 

 Board into existence in 1891 it was expected that his remedial 

 legislation, being of a curative character, would have had the 

 effect, through gradually ameliorating the condition of these 

 districts, of reducing the area covered by the word " congested." 

 The Land Act of 1891 defined a Congested Districts County as 

 formed of electoral divisions of which " the total rateable 

 value of more than 20 per cent, of the population give when 

 divided by the number of the population, a sum of less than 

 30s. for each individual." The tendency of recent legislation, 

 however, and particularly the Land Act of 1909, has been not 

 to contract but to expand the area dealt with by the Board. 

 In the 1909 Act " a congested holding " is defined as " a holding 

 not exceeding 71. in rateable value," and " a congested townland " 

 means " a townland in which more than half of the holdings 

 are (a) congested holdings, or, (b) holdings whose aggregate 

 rateable value when divided by their number gives a sum of 

 less than 71. for each holding." The original area dealt with by 

 the Congested Districts Board embraced part of each county in 

 the province of Connaught and part of Clare, Cork, Kerry, and 

 Donegal. As a result of Mr. Birrell's Act of 1909, however, 

 the congested districts area now includes the whole of the 

 counties of Donegal and Kerry, the whole province of Con- 

 naught (that is the counties of Leitrim, Sligo, Roscommon, 

 Mayo, and Galway) and six rural districts of Co. Clare, and 

 four of the rural districts of Co. Cork, roughly a third of 

 Ireland in all. What is a still more marked departure from 

 the original scope and work of the Congested Districts 



