IRELAND. 347 



have been, and what there were, were for the most part 

 inferior. Pigs, reared almost always in the house of the 

 cultivator, gave a tolerable return; but the deficiency 

 in sheep was very great. Of these the proportion, as 

 compared to England, was as one to eight, and no know- 

 ledge as to the means for improving the breeds existed. 

 As to implements, there was an absence of the most 

 simple descriptions ; scarcely any ploughs or carts, spades 

 and panniers supplying the place of all other tilling im- 

 plements; and this state of matters existing, too, even 

 next door to the richest country in the world for agri- 

 cultural machinery ; no sort of advances made to the 

 farmers not even sufficient provisions for food, in con- 

 sequence of which most of them were obliged to borrow, 

 upon heavy terms, even their seed and a little flour for 

 bread, until harvest. 



Intellectual capital or agricultural skill had made no 

 greater progress. The four-year course was scarcely 

 known, save upon a few farms, which were managed by 

 Englishmen or Scotchmen. Very few turnips, beans, or 

 artificial grasses ; even the natural grass-lands, that in- 

 valuable treasure peculiar to the soil and climate, were 

 filled with stagnant pools, and covered with weeds. 

 Owing to the want of the proper means for maintaining 

 the fertility of the land, wheat and barley were little 

 cultivated ; all was sacrificed to two crops, destined 

 chiefly for human food namely, oats and potatoes, and 

 yet both indifferently understood, inasmuch as they were 

 continuously taken off the same land as long as it con- 

 tinued to yield anything. 



Imagination fails to appreciate the loss which a country 

 in such a state sustains. To have furnished Ireland with 

 the capital which she lacked in sheep alone, as compared 



