XI 

 IRELAND THE ARDS : FLAX AND POTATOES 



OUR knowledge of Irish farming was so slender that 

 we may perhaps not unfairly gauge the ordinary 

 Englishman's opinion on the subject by our own. 

 The picture we had was made up of certain visions of 

 great rolling pastures in Meath, a county of mighty 

 hunters on the one hand and of cattle-driving on the 

 other, contrasted with the distressful West, where men 

 and women cultivate tiny patches of potatoes and 

 oats in little pockets of soil among the rocks, soil 

 that has often been carried there on the backs of the 

 occupiers. These imaginings were also based on the fact 

 that the only Irish produce we knew was butter and the 

 store cattle which are brought over in such numbers into 

 England to be fattened. That Ireland does not consist 

 wholly of grass and bog and stones had been forced on 

 our attention occasionally when we read that the average 

 yield per acre of most of the staple crops oats and 

 turnips, for example is higher in Ireland than in any 

 other part of the United Kingdom. Flax, also, con- 

 tinues to grow in Ireland, a crop requiring much 

 labour and skill, whereas it has almost disappeared 

 from Great Britain. It was with some idea of seeing 

 for ourselves where these things are done that at 



Penrith, instead of going on to Scotland, we 



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