ON AGRICULTURE TO IRELAND 



41 



lands of Meath, for example ? Are these fields, rich in phosphates 

 and lime, and pre-eminently suitable for rearing store cattle, not 

 more profitably used when left in grass ? The Department has 

 tackled and answered that question too. It is confident that 

 tillage is more profitable even in Meath, provided up-to-date 

 methods are employed and those crops only are grown for which 

 the land is best suited. 



Department's Policy 



The Department's scheme of tillage is far reaching. It will 

 revolutionise farming in Ireland. The man with an acre or a 



MARES AND FOALS, EARL OF BESSBOROUGH S FARM 



few acres favourably situated is to practise the most intensive 

 cultivation, and to concentrate his attention on fruit, flowers, 

 vegetables, poultry, bees, and the like. The man with more 

 acres where soil and climate are suitable is, without neglecting 

 other minor farm industries, to become an intensive dairy farmer, 

 ploughing up every available acre of grass and stall-feeding his 

 cattle, thus at once adding to his stock and to the fertility of his 

 soil. Where neither market gardening nor intensive dairy farm- 

 ing is possible, the farmers of Ireland are to increase their crops 

 by the most up-to-date methods of cultivation, and turn them 

 into beef, mutton, pork, butter, eggs, and poultry. It is hoped 

 that the development of agriculture on these lines, coincident 

 with the spread of a co-operative movement which is intended 

 to encircle the land and reach its remotest corner, will go far 

 to make the uneconomic holdings of Ireland economic. 



