CREAMERIES 291 



increased until at Roscrea, which marks the pass 

 through which both road and railway penetrate the 

 Slieve Bloom range, our road turned northward again 

 to Birr or Parsonstown. 



We were now in West Tipperary, close to Limerick, 

 in a county in which dairying assumes considerable 

 importance, and where co-operative organizations, not 

 only in the direction of creameries, but also for the 

 purchase of manures and seeds, and again, for the sale 

 of eggs, have made considerable headway. But we 

 were not anxious to see creameries, which have been 

 reduced to a system, and, except for size, are now much 

 the same all over Western Europe, and we turned 

 aside into the low and frequently boggy country which 

 slopes down towards Lough Derg and the Shannon, 

 there to visit a large and energetic farmer. Occupying 

 400 acres in one farm, with more land outside, our 

 host was a very large farmer for any part of Ireland, 

 but then he was a man of education and capital an 

 example of the gentleman farmer out for business and 

 not merely holding land as a pastime or for the sport 

 it brings in its train. He represented a type that is 

 much rarer in Ireland than in England, though some 

 of the younger landlords are now taking to the active 

 management of their demesnes, the only land left to 

 them after purchase. The soil was a light loam 

 resting upon limestone, and extremely stony ; on the 

 lower parts of the farm it passed into a black peaty 

 soil the remains of a former bog. The rent stood at 

 about I2s., but the tenant-right on the place would 

 amount to nearly 10 an acre, so that to compare it 

 with an English farm the rent would have to be 

 reckoned at about 255. an acre no light burden even 

 for good land, considering the remoteness from the rail 

 and the distance thence to big markets. 



