64 COURSE OF CEOPS — RENTS. 



waters of the Shannon, the road traverses a very rich 

 country. At Cratloe, four miles west of Limerick, the 

 residence of Mr Augustus Stafford, M.P., which I sub- 

 sequently visited, I learned from a respectable farmer, 

 and a man of intelligence, that the usual mode of 

 management in this country, is to keep all the tillage- 

 land in a constant succession of crops, and the land 

 which is required for stock always in grass. The course 

 followed is to take — 



then begin again, and so repeat the course : 300 stones 

 of wheat to the Irish acre, equal to 70 imperial bushels, 

 and 300 to 400 stones of barley, equal to 80 to 100 

 bushels, are said to be no uncommon crops. These are 

 equivalents to 43 bushels of wheat, and 56 to 65 bushels 

 of barley, per English acre, and must be regarded, under 

 the present mode of management, as indicating a soil 

 of the highest fertility. Rents are falling rapidly in 

 -this quarter : one farm of fine quality, which used to 

 let at £2, 10s., is now offered at £1, 5s. an Irish acre. 

 Another of 300 acres, principally fine old grass, let to 

 a dairy farmer at nine hundred guineas, has lately been 

 reduced to six hundred. 



Leaving Dromoland on 23d October, I proceeded 

 eastward to Kiltanon, near Tulla, the residence of Mr 

 Molony, which I reached in time to walk over part of 

 his estate with him in the forenoon. He has judiciously 

 improved some extent of bog-land, on which there was 

 then growing a very luxuriant crop of swedes, white carrot, 



