THE IRELAND OF TO-DAY. 37 



With the exception of the coarsest soils in 

 Ulster, the land, as soon as it is withdrawn 

 from cultivation, covers itself with grass. The 

 climate, with its regular moisture and slight cold 

 in winter, favours grass farming and is not the 

 most beneficial to tillage farming. Besides these 

 physical reasons a host of other causes have 

 co-operated to make Ireland a pastoral land. It 

 is asserted that the abolition of the Corn Tax 

 (1846) changed Ireland from an agricultural to 

 a pastoral country. It is not my intention to 

 discuss this question here, but it can be said with 

 tolerable precision that no corn duties of fairly 

 bearable dimensions would have been able to 

 stay the great fall in the price of corn during 

 the eighties. Up to that time it was not so much 

 the fall in corn prices as the rise in meat prices 

 which had caused the prevalence of cattle breed- 

 ing in Ireland. Moreover, the Irish have always 

 been a cattle rearing people, understanding 

 little of agriculture and turning their attention 

 exclusively to cattle breeding. The dense popu- 



his supervision the statistical publications of the Department 

 of Agriculture became a scientifically thought-out and practi- 

 cally useful source of information. Coyne was one of the few 

 Irishmen who have brought a scientific training to the treatment 

 of practical questions. The statistics which have issued from 

 his department are among the few which try to answer questions 

 in a scientific manner, and do not merely contain a collection 

 of figures which may just as well serve to mislead as to illu- 

 minate public opinion. Very many difficult points in my Irisli 

 studies would never have been solvable without his help and 

 advice. 



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