256 ON THE STATE OF IRELAND. [BOOK III. 



SECTION IX. 



THE next point to which we think attention is due is the 

 state of those occupiers of land who do the work of it 

 themselves. We consider them as labourers, and they 

 amount to about one-half of the whole class. They are 

 at times employed on their own holdings, at others they 

 work for hire. At present they are so utterly unacquainted 

 with any good course of cultivation, that it is supposed 

 they do not make the land they hold yield one-third of 

 the produce that it might under proper management; 

 they have no notion of alternate cropping, nor of house- 

 feeding, nor of the value of manure, except as applied to a 

 potatoe-garden. The extraordinary improvement that has 

 been wrought in their holdings, where proper attention 

 has been paid to them, warrants us in the hope that, by 

 bringing agricultural instruction home to their doors, and 

 affording them examples of order and cleanliness, and 

 good cottier-husbandry, a general change will be effected 

 in then: habits and circumstances, and the whole of Ire- 

 land be essentially improved. 



We therefore propose that an agricultural model school 

 shall be established for Ireland, and that a school, having 

 four or five acres of land annexed to it, shall be esta- 

 blished in each parish or other district that may be ap- 

 pointed by the Board of Improvement; that the master shall 

 give instruction in letters and in agriculture ; that he un- 

 degro due examination as to both before he be appointed ; 



