THE CELTIC SYSTEM I 59 



Bear [barley], with all the dung made by the beasts housed on 

 the farm laid upon it. Second and third, oats: then bear again; 

 and so on in the same unvarying rotation. [For bear, the earth 

 was turned over upon the stubble in the winter, a process called 

 " ribbing." At the end of April, after harrowing, the dung was 

 spread, the soil lightly ploughed, and the crop sown.] For oats 

 the ground is ploughed as soon after the grain is cut down as 

 possible; often some parts of the ridges are ploughed the day the 

 corn is cut down. ... It is impossible to form an idea of the 

 foulness of the crop. ... It is by no means uncommon to 

 see one-half the ridge (usually that side which lies to the east or 

 north) cut up for green food that year it is in bear, no grain being 

 to be seen among it. . . . 



" That part of the farm called out-held is divided into two 

 unequal portions. The smallest, usually about one-third part, 

 is called folds, provincially falds; the other larger portion is de- 

 nominated /awgA^. The fold ground usually consists of ten divi- 

 sions, one of which each year is brought into tillage from grass. 

 With this intent it is surrounded with a wall of sod the last year 

 it is to remain in grass, which forms a temporary inclosure that 

 is employed as a penn for confining the cattle during the night 

 time and for two or three hours each day at noon. It thus gets 

 a tolerably full dunging, after which it is plowed up for oats 

 during the winter. In the same manner it is plowed successively 

 for oats for four or five years, or as long as it will carry any crop 

 worth reaping. It is then abandoned for five or six years, during 

 which time it gets by degrees a sward of poor grass, when it is 

 again subjected to the same rotation. 



" The faughs never receive manure of any sort; and they are 

 cropped in exactly the same manner as the folds, with this differ- 

 ence, that instead of being folded upon, they are broke up from 

 grass by what they call a rib-plowing about midsummer; one 

 part of the sward being turned by the plow upon the surface of 

 an equal portion that is not raised, so as to be covered by the 

 furrow. This operation on grass land is called faughing, from 

 whence the division of the farm takes its name. It is allowed to 

 lie in this state until autumn, when it is plowed all over . . . 



