348 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



to England, would have required 20,000,000 sterling. 

 Double that amount at least would have been necessary 

 for other kinds of cattle, 120,000,000 for draining, and 

 a like sum for the construction of more comfortable dwell- 

 ings, fences and country roads, and for the purchase of 

 the most necessary implements. In all say 300,000,000, 

 which would still have been only 16 per acre. Certainly 

 a much larger sum has been absorbed by England, 



The advocates for large property exclusively had some 

 cause for being perplexed when the question was mooted 

 with reference to Ireland. Large property there ruled 

 supreme, more so than in England, or even in Scotland. 

 A few small proprietors existed in the neighbourhood of 

 large towns, where a little trade and manufactures had 

 developed a citizen class ; the rest of the island was di- 

 vided into immense estates of from one thousand to one 

 hundred thousand acres,"* and the greater the extent the 

 more dilapidated their condition. The largest remained 

 in a state of nature, like the famous district of Connemara, 

 in Connaught, well known by the name of Martin's Estate. 

 Entails, much more common than in England, prevented 

 most of these domains from being sold. The primi- 

 tive law of the land was gavelkind, or equal division 

 among the male children, until the English imported the 

 right of primogeniture. 



In their turn, those who considered small farming as 

 the universal panacea were no less perplexed, for if Ire- 

 land was the land of very large properties, it was also, 

 par excellence, the country of very small farming. There 

 were no fewer than 300,000 farms below five acres, 

 250,000 from five to fifteen, 80,000 from fifteen to thirty, 



* The Irish acre is equal to 65 ares 55 centiares rather more than 1^ im- 

 perial acres. 



