310 



STATISTICAL SURVEY OF IRISH AGRICULTURE. 



Barley. 



The culture of barley on anything like a large scale was confined to 

 eight counties. The province of Leinster had under barley 72 per cent, of 

 the total area under that crop in 1901, while Munster had 23 per cent. 

 Ulster and Connaught had, respectively, 3 and 2 per cent, of the total 

 barley area. I append a list of the counties in which an area of 1,000 acres 

 or upwards was under barley last year: — Wexford, 31,000; Kilkenny, 

 19,000; Queen's County, 18,000; Cork and Tipperary, 17,000 each; King's 

 County and Louth, 14,000 each; Kildare, 10,000; Carlow, 5,000; Galway, 

 2,000 ; Down and Kerry, 1,700 each. 



The following statement affords an estimate of the total production of 

 barley m Ireland : — 



The area under barley last year was 12,462 less than that for IQOO, the 

 highest since 1892 when the area under that crop was over 175,000 acres. 

 The imports of foreign barley into the United Kingdom amount to between 

 six and seven times the total Irish produce. 



Wheat. 



While Ireland produces between one-third and one-fourth of the oats 

 grown in the United Kingdom, her proportion of barley is less than one- 

 tenth, and of wheat only about a thirty-seventh part. Down, Cork, Wexford, 

 Galway, Dublin, Limerick, Tipperary, and Kilkenny are, in the order given, 

 the greatest wheat-growing districts. Taking provinces as the unit, we 

 find that, out of a total area under wheat in 1901 of 42,934 acres, Munster 

 contributed 13,312 acres; Ulster, 12,498 acres (Down alone having 6,344 

 acres, or 51 per cent, of the total for the province) ; Leinster, 11,885 acres ; 

 and Connaught, 5,239 acres. 



Potatoes. 



The importance of the potato crop in Ireland is not so paramount as it 

 was three or four decades ago, but the potato still forms the staple food of 

 a large proportion of the poorer population of the South and West and 

 North-west. As already stated, the acreage under potatoes in Ireland in 

 1901 was 635,321 as compared with 654,079 in the year 1900, showing a 

 decrease of 18,758 acres. Of the acreage under potatoes in 1901, 66.4 per 

 cent, consisted of " Champions," leaving only 33.6 per cent, for all other 

 varieties. From the year 1891, however, the proportion under "Cham- 



