GENERAL FARMING 



Ikeland is basin-shaped. The mountains round the coast are the 

 rim. The inside is the flat of the basin. It is a large plain, so 

 level that it has been said a stream rising in the centre of the 

 plain might run either to the Irish Channel or the Atlantic Ocean. 

 Within this basin there are really two Irelands, There is the 

 Ireland of the North, where the land is, comparatively speaking, 

 poor land and the climate cold, where the farmers are shrewd, 

 intelligent men, who have made the most of. their circumstances. 

 The farm steadings are trim and well kept. The land is well 

 tilled. There is an air of prosperity about the country. There is 

 the Ireland of the South, where the land is better and the climate 

 milder, and the people, possibly to some extent because nature has 

 done so much for them, are less energetic ; where the steadings 

 are ill-kept and the land badly tilled, and waste and neglect are 

 much in evidence. The difference between these two Irelands 

 is so great that when the section of the Scottish Agricultural 

 Commission which went North met the section which went South, 

 they had formed entirely different conceptions of farming in 

 Ireland. The Northern section was inclined to compare Irish 

 farming, as they had seen it, to Danish farming. There seemed 

 to be the same intelligence applied to agriculture as in Denmark. 

 There seemed to be the same economy and thrift practised on the 

 farms. There seemed to be something approaching to the same 

 comfort. The Southern section, on the other hand, were dis- 

 appointed. They saw good land in a good climate going to waste 

 for want of energy on the part of the farmers. They saw bad and 

 badly kept farm buildings. They saw an Ireland where to the 

 outside observer the policy of the Department of Agriculture 

 would, if followed, produce tlie earliest and most fruitful results, 

 and yet that policy was making comparatively little headway. 



Area of the Country 



The Area of Ireland is 20,350,725 acres. It is divided as 

 follows : — 



Corn and green crops, including flax 



Hay. 



Pasture 



Mountain and land grazed . 



Fruit and fallow 



Woods and plantations 



Barren mountain land, bog, water, etc. 



Acres. 



2,398,123 



2,328,958 



10,064,307 



2,244,708 



13,000 



305,684 



2,995,945 



