THE CLIMA TE OF IRELAND. 255 



In the South of Ireland corn ripens, but with 

 difficulty, so that a good or bad crop of corn is 

 more dependent on the character of the season 

 than elsewhere, and the crop is more often inferior. 

 Over thirty years ago, before the famine, when I 

 began to farm in Ireland, the universal rotation in 

 the county of Cork, except near the mountains, was 

 potatoes on lea manured (and such lea as it was ! — 

 land left to rest, without grass seeds even, and one 

 mass of weeds ; and then the manuring ! — earth 

 drawn from the field, with a little calcareous sand 

 and the refuse of the dwelling-house mixed), fol- 

 lowed by wheat. Oats only came in as a scourging 

 crop when the land would no longer gTow wheat. 

 The wheat was a poor crop, five or six barrels of 

 twenty stones, about equal to twenty-four bushels, 

 being considered good. Half that produce was 

 much more common. But as Corn-law prices then 

 ruled, farmers were content, except in bad years, 

 which in that climate were frequent. 



After I had been farming pretty well for some 

 years, with only a moderate increase of crop, I 

 remember thinking the cause must be in the pre- 

 viously exhausted condition of the soil, and that I 

 might get over it and grow good wheat by a rotation 

 of (1) swedes, (2) rape, (3) wheat. The swedes and 

 rape were well manured with bones, besides other 

 manure, and half the swedes and all the rape were 

 eaten with sheep. The wheat looked all that 



