76 ON THE STATE OF IRELAND. [BOOK I. 



The middling class of farmers, who have succeeded the 

 petty occupiers, are able to send to market milk, butter 

 and cattle in increased quantity and of improved quality. 

 The cultivation of grain has diminished, arid this is re- 

 garded as advantageous to the cultivators. The occupiers 

 of the enlarged holdings are so convinced of the greater 

 profit to be derived from grazing, that they till no more 

 than is necessary for their own consumption. 



In the large farms, although a much smaller number of 

 labourers on the whole are engaged, they are in general 

 permanently employed, and the fanner has something to 

 take to market. 



A portion of those who were ejected by the consolida- 

 tion of the farms, subsisted for a long time only by beg- 

 ging. The condition of those whom the landlord retained 

 is so much improved, that they even refuse the offer of 

 considerable farms, and the labourers employed on those 

 farms find work all the year, and by degrees relinquish the 

 desire of possessing land. 



A large proprietor has introduced a farming bailiff from 

 Scotland, for the purpose of instructing his tenants of 

 ten acres in the advantage to be derived from a judicious 

 course of cropping. The benefit of this has been proved, 

 and several farmers often unite to hire a servant-boy for 

 the year, whom they employ each in turn for so many days 

 in the week in rotation. 



The witnesses complained of the immoderate price at 

 which proprietors let their lands, and that the roads and 

 fences on or adjacent to the farms pay rent as if they were 

 arable land, whether the farms are large or small ; in the 

 case of a small farm, the proprietor receives at least nine- 

 tenths of the value of what it produces. 



