1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



381 



engaged, we should be entirely at loss to know 

 what place in creation to assign him ; or what sta- 

 tion, in the great chain of animated creation he is 

 designed to occupy. j. s. E. 



July oth, 1856. 



Remarks. — There is scarcely a week but we 

 witness in Boston examples of "man's inhumanity" 

 to his best servant, the noble horse. The first is 

 in the constant and tantalizing use of the abomina- 

 ble check- rein, which causes more anguish to the 

 horse ten times over than all the beating he gets, 

 and the second in overloading and then scourging 

 him because it is out of his power to back or draw 

 the load. We wish there were a city ordinance 

 preventing any teamster from carrying a whip 

 which should weigh more than two ounces. 



For the New England Farmer. 



RURAL ECONOMY OF THE BRITISH 

 ISLES-No. 16. 



IRELAND. 



The history of Irish agriculture is as mournful, 

 as the histories of the agricultures of England and 

 Scotland are brilliant. But there are important 

 lessons in it, or I would not attempt this sketch. 



In soil, Ireland is superior to England. The 

 conformation of the country is peculiar ; mountains 

 range along nearly the whole extent of the coasts 

 of the island, — the interior being a vast plain, and, 

 for the most part, highly fertile. Ireland contains 

 about twenty million acres, exclusive of lakes. The 

 climate is milder and damper than in England, 

 vegetation is luxuriant, and not without reason is 

 the shamrock or clover adopted as the emblem of 

 Ireland. Its southern coast enjoys a perpetual 

 spring, owing to the ocean current of the gulf 

 stream passing along from the tropics, and myrtles 

 grow there in the open air. 



No country has greater facilities for water car- 

 riage, interior as well as exterior. Immense lakes 

 afford unexampled means of transport ; the Shan- 

 non, the finest river in Great Britain — half river and 

 half lake — extends nearly across the island ; other 

 rivers equally navigable flow in all directions from 

 different lakes, and the coast is everywhere indent- 

 ed with bays and harbors, the most capacious. — 

 Four large cities or capitals, Dublin, Cork, Belfast 

 and Limerick, are situated, as it were, in the centre 

 of the four faces of the island. The whole island, 

 except Connaught and part of Ulster, has great ag- 

 ricultural capacity, and the soil of some parts of it 

 is the richest soil in the world with a calcareous 

 subsoil. 



This is the description of a splendid country. 

 Yet who has the heart to repeat its history of mis- 

 ery, poverty, woe, famine and emigration. 



The absence of capital and skill were apparent 

 a few years ago, everywhere in Ireland, and the 

 imagination fails to appreciate the loss and destitu- 

 tion of a country, which is so deficient in agricul- 

 tural capital. Let us try to help the imagination 

 by facts. What was not wanting in Ireland ? It 

 was without buildings, fences, roads, drainage, man- 

 ures ; deficient in cattle, cows, sheep and pigs, in 

 plows, carts and horses, — the spade being almost 



the only implement of husbandry ; deficient in tur- 

 nips, beans, artificial grasses, wheat, barley, stored 

 harvests, milk and cheese — oats and potatoes being 

 the principal food. To have furnished Ireland with 

 the capital which she lacked in sheep alone, as com- 

 pared to England, would have required a hundred 

 millions of dollars. Two hundred millions of dol- 

 lars would have been necessary for other kinds of 

 cattle, six hundred millions for drainage, and a like 

 sum for the construction of more comfortable 

 dwellings, roads and fences, and for necessary im- 

 plements of husbandry — in all say fifteen hundred 

 millions of dollars, which would have been only 

 about $80 the acre. Certainly a much larger sum 

 has been absorbed by England. 



This statement shows not only the destitution of 

 Ireland, and one cause of its misery, and the hope- 

 lessness of making good, except after long time and 

 effort, the resources which should have been accu- 

 mulated thi'ough and by past generations ; but it 

 shows that the capital which is connected with and 

 necessary to a prosperous agriculture is immense, 

 and that a State which has it not must labor long 

 and suffer much, before it can lilt itself into a con- 

 dition of prosperity. But Ireland was not only 

 destitute of agricultural capital, but it was almost 

 without commerce and manufactures. But if it 

 had had commerce and manufactures, and was des- 

 titute of agricultural wealth, it would have had no 

 well-founded prosperity. A State is but half a 

 State, if it have a commerce rich in the wealth of 

 the Indies and all seas, if it manufacture the mar- 

 vels of all handicrafts, tapestries and porcelain and 

 rich furniture, cottons, woollens and shoes ; if it 

 possess machinery as ingenious as the human 

 mind and apt as the human hand, and artizans and 

 craftsmen who understand all the arts of luxury 

 and refinement, as well as the arts of common life ; 

 yet, if it have not an agriculture turned to the ele- 

 mentary purpose of procuring food and clothing, rich 

 in crops and sheep and cattle, in bread and meat, 

 and a rural population of large aggregate wealth, 

 spread over the face of the country, such a State is 

 weak and unsound ; a seam and fracture will be 

 found running through its structure, from its bat- 

 tlement down deep into its foundations. Let Mas- 

 sachusetts, while it rejoices in the development of 

 its commerce and manufactures, beware how it ne- 

 glects its agriculture. 



But these thoughts need not be pressed in re- 

 gard to Ireland. Her condition suggested only the 

 idea of destitution of everything, except a supera- 

 bundant population, a few gentlemen's parks, and a 

 few cities. The rest was neglected pasture land and 

 cabins, and a few acres around cultivated with the 

 spade and devoted to potatoes. 



Large property ruled supreme in Ireland. The 

 island was divided into immense estates of from 

 one thousand to one hundred thousand acres, and 

 the greater their extent, the more wretched their 

 condition. The advocates of large properties, who 

 attributed to large property all the agricultural 

 prosperity of England and Scotland, were perplexed 

 when they turned to Ireland. On the other hand, 

 though properties were large, farming was small, 

 and the advocates of small farming were equally 

 perplexed by Ireland ; for here Avere hundreds of 

 thousands of farms below five acres, and nearly as 

 many more of from five to fifteen acres, and only 

 fifty thousand above thirty aci'es. Yet, on every 

 hand were wretchedness and poverty. AU, propri- 



