M‘Sweeny, on the Climate of Ireland. 292 
The account which Mela has given of the vegetation in the island, although exag- 
gerated, yet it has a tendency to prove the moist and mild nature of the climate in his 
time. He states that the climate is unfit to bring grain to maturity, and that cattle, if 
not restrained from feeding, would be in danger of bursting from the luxuriant her- 
bage.— Mela, Lib. 3. c. 6. 
Some agriculturists maintain now, that corn is liable to degenerate in this moist cli- 
mate, and they advise the importation of seed corn from a more congenial country. 
Cattle have been often injured by feeding on clover. Spencer says, speaking of corn 
in Ireland—*‘as for corn, it isnothing natural, save only for barley and oats, and some 
places for rye.” Arthur Young, m modern times, gives a decided preference to Eng- 
lish grain in comparison to Irish. 
Petrus Lombardus imagined that the vine could be cultivated with success in Ireland ; 
this ought to be looked on as a speculation, probably encouraged by a succession of 
favourable seasons about the period in which he wrote. He was an ecclesiastic who 
had spent a good deal of his time on the continent. Let us hear Camden on the 
subject of Ireland. ‘It has also vines, but more for shade than fruit, for when the 
sun quits Leo, cool breezes ensue in this our climate, and the afternoon heats in 
autumn, are too weak and short both here, and in Britain, to bring grapes to per- 
fection.” — Gough’s Camden. 
In an Irish almanack of the fourteenth century, the time of gathering grapes and 
of drinking new made wine, is pointed out—Anthol. Hiber. Vol. I. p. 130. 
This ought to be looked on in the light of a modern gardener’s book. Although 
directions may be given in such a book how to cultivate the fig tree, we would not be 
led to suppose that the climate was fitted for it ; yet in 1826, in the south of Ireland, 
figs in some favourable situations, came to perfection in the open air. 
There is an ancient canon which imposes penalties on the owners of hens that 
damage vines.—Dacherii Spicil, tom. ix. p. 46. 
Ecclesiastical communities might have raised vines for shade and ornament as at 
present, or for making verjuice. 
It has been supposed that yew trees did not abound in Ireland in the middle ages, 
from an act being passed to oblige merchants to import bows. This may be accounted 
for; the Irish probably destroyed the yew tree wherever they met it, for two reasons, 
first, because it was poisonous to their cattle, secondly, because it afforded their ene- 
mies a destructive weapon. 
Although Patterson has, in his treatise on the Climate of Ireland, refuted Hamilton, 
yet he has propagated an error relating to the quantity of rain in Ireland. He sup- 
posed that more rain fell in England, than in Ireland, and he has led others into the 
same mistake. We find in the Encyclopedia Metropolitana article, Ireland, the fol- 
lowing : 
“It is probable that the quantity of rain which falls annually in Ireland, is less than 
