288 CENTRAL IRELAND 



The profit is made at the original breeder's expense, 

 not by turning so many acres of grass into so many 

 pounds of beef, and the system will cease as soon as 

 the mountainy man who breeds can learn to get his 

 stores ready for the British market without the inter- 

 vention of the middleman the grazier. 



Out of Dublin again south-westwards we ran 

 through the same grass country until in Kildare we 

 were well into the great limestone plain which forms 

 the centre of Ireland. The rock is generally buried 

 deep beneath superficial drifts of glacial origin; sudden 

 ridges like ramparts of gravel and stones the eskers 

 mark the lines of flow of the old ice, which also 

 scooped out flat undrained hollows, in which peat has 

 accumulated. It is a wide country of green pasture 

 and bog under a great arch of sky, with always on the 

 horizon, seen far through the soft transparent air, one 

 of the low ranges of smooth hills which here and there 

 break up through the flat limestone floor. 



In Southern Kildare the grass begins to give place 

 to tillage, and on the Duke of Leinster's estate, one of 

 the first to be sold under the Act, we saw a really big 

 farm in a district where the holdings are generally 

 comparable in size to those of England. The soil 

 was on the light side, a stony drift, and though well 

 farmed had felt the drought somewhat, so that the 

 spring corn crops were below their usual average. 

 A somewhat unusual rotation was followed, barley 

 being sown on the ploughed -up lea and followed by a 

 second crop of barley, which in its turn was succeeded 

 by roots as a preparation for wheat. Our host ex- 

 plained the large proportion of barley by the fact that 

 barley gave in Ireland a heavier yield than oats, and 

 in his district at least could always be sold, whereas 

 oats could only be grown for consumption and never 



