IOC 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



[No. 2 



you to facts which are perfectly well known to 

 almost every man present, strangers excepted. 

 What I allude to is this; that there is not a man 

 who has distincruished himself hy his advance in 

 the system who has not enlarged his firm l)y ihat 

 means, or if not, is only waiting; f )r an opportu- 

 nity to do so. You all know Moses Greer; you 

 know he began upon tour acres of land — he has 

 now in his possession above nineteen acres: the 

 greater part of it held by an old lease, at a low 

 rent, and when lie gets it into heart it will be 

 worth £200 to £250. He is, in fiict, re-uniiing 

 parts, I think, of the same lease that had heen 

 years affo divided. Within a short distance of 

 him is Bartley Kinney, who has added about ten 

 acres to his farm. Then there is Rollston of 

 Driimminis; he has re-unitetl the iarm he lives 

 upon, and has got double what he had, and is 

 now in treaty for more. John Ilogg, ol' Drum- 

 gaw, in like manner; Thomas Scoit, also, and 

 many others; but these men are here present, and 

 ready to answer any questions that may be asked 

 them. It is true the landlord has assisted their 

 exertions, but they have repaid him, and any 

 landlord is blind to his own interest that lets an 

 honest industrious tenant want any help he can 

 reasonably ask. I mention these because they 

 are in company, but there are scores who are 

 coming Ibrward, year by year, who are all upon 

 the look-out to add to their farms. The fact is, 

 capital will always find a place tor itself some- 

 where or other, and the man who has more mo- 

 ney than his place will employ, will soon buy 

 from his neighbor, or fit himself elsewhere. — 

 Whoever removes, we may be sure it is to benefit 

 himself, and those who stay behind have the op- 

 portunity of increasing their holdings by the addi- 

 tion of what he leaves; this is the natural efiiect of 

 the prosperity of any tenantry — as they get capital, 

 they become quite as anxious as their landlord to 

 have their farms enlarged, and with the desire 

 they have also the means. The examples you 

 have before you show this to be the case, and I 

 would tbndly hope that landlords everywhere 

 would he convinced that the natural tendency of 

 every improvement in agriculture, L'oes to tlie ac- 

 complishment ol" their wishes tor the eidargement 

 ol their farms, and that they will turn tiieir minds 

 to efl'ect what they so much dpsire, by this means, 

 and wholly abandon the clearan('e system which 

 some may have adopted, however contrary to 

 their feelings, in despair of accomplishing their 

 object in any other way. These liicts and aruru- 

 ments will, I hope, tend to do away prejudice 

 where it may still exist; but I am happy to say, 

 from the number of applications I have for agri- 

 culturists, that all prejudice is fast declining, and 

 I expect, before lotig, to see the plan we are follow- 

 ing, or some modification of it, universally adopted. 

 From the interest I take in its success, I fear I have 

 detained you too long, bu! I trust you will pardon 

 me, and that we shall all live to another anniver- 

 Bary, and be able to congratulate ourselves on its 

 further extension. I think I know, myseli; of be- 

 tween sixty and seventy agriculturists having 

 come over from Scotland, and it is not too much 

 to suppose that I am not personally acquainted 

 with the one-third of those who may have been 

 engaged for the purpose of improving estates; and 

 as they are generally placed on large properties of 

 ten to fifteen thoupand acres, it is not perhaps co- 



ing beyond the mark to say that there must be in 

 Ireland from a million and a half to two millions 

 of acres, upon which the system is more or less in 

 progress, and I have at this moment orders lor five 

 more agriculturists, whom I have not yet been able 

 to procure. The chairman here concUuied by giv- 

 ing as a toast "'the town and trade of jMarkeihill.'' 

 The chairman then gave, as a toast — ''the im- 

 proving tenants on the Charlemont, Richhill, and 

 Drumbanagher estates" — which was replied to by 

 Mr. Anderson, who mentioned the encouragement 

 given to the Richhill estate, both by reduction ol 

 rents, premiums for crops, and assistance in repair- 

 ing housps. He also mentioned that since the re- 

 turn made last year, the house-feeders had increas- 

 ed upon the estate fully one-third. 



THE PATENT JlETARDER, OR IMPROVED 

 DRAG. 



The object that the projectors of this contri- 

 vance have in view is to obviate the danger ami 

 risk that passengers are exposed to, whether tra- 

 velling by stage coaches or other vehicles, when 

 descending hills, or in case of the horses of their 

 carriage liecoming unmanageable, restive, or run- 

 ning away. On Tuesday afiernoon a nuniber of 

 trials were made, with a view to test the efficacy 

 of this invention, by rurming a stage coach with 

 the retarder attached to it, (with and without hor- 

 ses,) up and down Highgaie hill, and the result 

 was most satisfactory. To a casual observer 

 there is no essential alteration in the appearance 

 of a coach to which the retarder is attached, and 

 certainly it adds no great weight to it: but by ita 

 construction either the coachman or the guard, 

 and indeed any person in the rear of the coach, by 

 the pressure of the foot on the spring arising from 

 this machine, and without alighting, can retard or 

 stop the progress of it at pleasure. The principle 

 of this machine, as we understand it, is, thai by 

 increasing the pressure on the boxes of each of 

 the hinder wheels the friction is increased to such 

 an extent as to stop the progress of the vehicle. 

 This is managed by means of a lever with springs 

 acting above and below the box of each of the hind 

 wheels, and, as we belore observed, can be applied 

 by any person on the top of the coach. As far as 

 we were enabled to judge of the merits of this in- 

 vention fi'om the trial of Tuesday, we were per- 

 fectly satisfied of its utility. Every person who 

 has travelled to any extent must be aware of the 

 inconvenience and danjier that results from the 

 pressure of a heavily laden coach on the horses 

 in descending a steep hill; but by means of the 

 retarder the coach can be slopped, or its progress 

 regulated at pleasure, almost imperceptibly to the 

 passengers, or the machine can be applied in a 

 manner to operate as an additional drtd't of seve- 

 ral tons. Again, on ascending a hill, a coach can 

 be stopped at pleasure by means of this invention, 

 so as to prevent its running hack. At the same 

 time the recurrence of those accidents can be pre- 

 vented which so often arise from the coachman, 

 on leaving his box, placing the reins in charge of 

 a passenger or horsekeeper. The proprietors of 

 this machine contend that the adoption of it by 

 coach proprietors would be attended with consid- 

 erable pecuniary advantage to the latter; of this, 

 however, we are unable to express an opinion, 

 but we have no hesilutiun in stating that the gen- 



