210 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



American bagman, who informed me that he 

 had been one of the greatest agricultural 

 instructors Ireland ever had. I was talking 

 to one of the Department of Agricultural 

 County instructors at the time, and I naturally 

 looked at my informant with a note of interro- 

 gation on my eyebrow. 



" I introduce new machinery to the farmers," 

 he informed me in his expansive way, "and 

 teach them how to use it, and, as an Irish 



farmer once said to me, ' P of Belfast can 



take the fat off my horses' backs with his 

 heavy tackle, but what I want to know is, 

 can he put it on again ? ' Now, with my 

 stuff a horse can gallop, etc." 



The farmer does not use his agricultural 

 machinery as a manufacturer uses a new 

 machine in a town, to produce a greater quan- 

 tity in a shorter time, but for the purpose 

 of keeping down his wages bill. Machinery 

 has hardly increased the productivity of the 

 farm, and it has been used almost entirely for 

 extensive rather than for intensive culture. 



It is well known that the best of our agi'i- 

 cultural machinery is exported to our colonies 

 and foreign countries. I have a friend, for 

 instance, who farms 1200 acres of more or less 



