8 IRISH AGRICULTURE. 



country without residence and practice in it, 

 enter upon the examination of her unsettled 

 provinces with minds greatly prejudiced both 

 against the people and their proceedings. 

 But let any impartial observer take up the 

 arguments which such men advance, and the 

 facts on which they found these arguments for 

 the condemnation of Ireland ; let him proceed 

 with them a day's journey in any direction out 

 of the English capital, and apply them to the 

 agricultural state of England ; and he will find 

 them as applicable for the one country as they 

 are for the other. Such is the inaccuracy of gene- 

 ral conclusions deduced from isolated facts. 



Those who conclude that the calamities of 

 Ireland arise from the inferiority of her agri- 

 culture, do not comprehend the industrial state 

 of her provinces. It may just as well be said, 

 that the inferiority of the condition of the 

 agricultural labourers of Easter and Wester 

 Ross to the condition of those of East-Lothian 

 or Norfolk, is occasioned by the inferiority of 

 the agriculture of the former to that of the 

 latter. It is a well-authenticated fact, that 

 agriculture is farther advanced in Easter-Ross 

 than in the generality of English counties ; not 



