CH.III.]' YEARLY OCCUPATION, OR CON-ACRE. 45 



CHAPTER III. 



OF OCCUPATION FOR ONE YEAR, OR BY THE CON-ACRE 

 SYSTEM. 



MR. Brassington stated, before the Committee charged 

 with inquiry into the agriculture in the three kingdoms, 

 that in Ireland (< a farmer, holding on lease 100 acres of 

 land at a rent of ll. 10s. per acre, con-acres 12 or 15 acres 

 of that land at 121. per acre, and that pays a large pro- 

 portion of the rent of the whole farm/ 5 He said that nearly 

 all the day-labourers hire small lots of land for a single year, 

 upon which they cultivate potatoes, and that only in the 

 eastern part of the province of Leinster they attach them- 

 selves to no landholders, and leave their cabins to go 

 whithersoever they choose. 



The Commissioners appointed to visit Ireland made 

 the most minute inquiries, in order to ascertain whether 

 this system of occupation was general in each parish, 

 and in what points it differed in various parishes. 



In the province of Connaught, the barony of Kilconnel 

 showed that a day-labourer hired for a year one- quarter or 

 one-eighth of an acre, to cultivate potatoes ; also that a 

 higher class of persons held one or two acres for growing 

 oats during the year; that a very considerable portion of 

 the barony is cultivated upon this system of letting in 

 small lots for a year, termed con-acre ; that the day-la- 

 bourers, and a part of the shopkeepers in the villages, 

 derive an income from this. This land consists of old 

 meadows or fallow-land, which the farmers sublet in this 

 manner, commonly giving permission to burn the surface, 



