358 RUKAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



people were almost totally ignorant of the most simple 

 methods of farming. 



The con-acre system was scarcely any better. When, 

 from some cause or other, a field had accumulated a suf- 

 ficient amount of fertility, it was let in that state to a 

 tenant for a single crop at an exorbitant price, usually 

 payable in days' work. This person planted it with 

 potatoes, and took as much out of it as he could with 

 one crop. "Near Limerick, the ordinary rent of fields 

 upon the con-acre system was 30 per acre ; and at this 

 rate a half or even smaller parts of an acre were some- 

 times let. " Competition for the land, especially when 

 possessed of some fertility/' remarked a witness upon the 

 inquiry of 1833, "is so great in some parts of Ireland, - 

 that hardly any rent asked is not immediately promised." 

 In Ireland, however, more than anywhere else, to promise 

 and to fulfil are two different things. But the two parties 

 contracting did not look at the matter so closely ; each in 

 the mean time got what he wanted the one, possession 

 of the land ; the other, the prospect of an unreasonable 

 rent. When accounts came to be settled between them, 

 they arranged as best they might. 



Paring and burning, which sacrifices future prospects 

 for the sake of the present, was much practised ; and this 

 accounts for the large extent of uncultivated, though cul- 

 tivable, land which is found in a country where arable 

 land was the object of such spirited competition. Years, 

 in fact, of dead fallow were necessary in order to repair 

 the injury inflicted by one or two bad crops upon a soil 

 treated in this way, unless done as the starting-point of 

 a skilful and progressive system of farming, which never 

 happened in Ireland. 



