58 THE IRISH AGRARIAN PROBLEM. 



Irish agriculture has summarised his opinion in 

 the following words : — 



" A preponderance of uneconomic holdings, the 

 want of working capital or of an inducement to 

 invest in the improvement of land ; the want of 

 proper housing for the farmer and his family or 

 for his stock ; a large and steady increase in the 

 area of second class pasture, which would yield 

 four times more wealth if well tilled ; the com- 

 placent satisfaction with the present system 

 which relegates Ireland to the position of a 

 ranch to supply store stock for British farmers 

 to fatten ; a too prevalent practice of selling the 

 best and breeding from inferior stock; the almost 

 complete loss in certain districts of the art of 

 tillage ; the want of a regular system of rota- 

 tion ; the aversion from doing more than the 

 minimum to clean the land ; the want of pride 

 in the performance of farm work and in the 

 arrangements about the homestead; the tendency 

 to put off ploughing, sowing, and harvesting until 

 the last moment ; the small value that is put 

 upon time ; the want of recognition of the fact 

 that the best and most productive manure that 

 goes into the land is labour ; all these and other 

 causes combine to make and to keep Irish farm- 

 ing backward."^ 



^Journal Dept. of Agric, December, 1903, p. 198. 



