292 CENTRAL IRELAND 



About one-half of the farm was under the plough, a 

 higher proportion than was usual in the district, where 

 our host considered there was a tendency for tillage to 

 decrease. In part he set this down to increasing 

 difficulties over labour, due both to an actual scarcity 

 through emigration and also to the trouble caused by 

 the numerous holidays ; in part, again, the good prices 

 realized by store cattle of late years have persuaded men 

 to stick to milk and calf rearing. The general tendency 

 in Ireland has been supposed to be towards an increase 

 of tillage; for instance, we have heard much of the 

 gain of 67,000 acres in 1910, but as this followed a 

 loss of nearly 46,000 acres in 1909, and was succeeded 

 by a loss of 22,000 acres in 1911, despite an increase 

 of over 20,000 acres in the flax area, the fluctuations 

 cannot be regarded as showing as yet any definite 

 trend in one direction or the other. The exceptional 

 summer of 1911, the resulting failure of grazing and 

 the store stock market, together with the rise in prices 

 of cereals, did induce farmers to plough more of their 

 land, but as yet no definite movement towards arable 

 farming is manifest in Ireland. We did hear that 

 the small farmers, alarmed by the high price of flour, 

 were beginning to grow wheat again and get the grain 

 ground locally for their own consumption. An increase 

 of tillage is, of course, the great necessity for Irish 

 agriculture, especially in the areas that have been 

 resettled by the operations of the Congested Districts 

 Board. The output from a 4O-acre holding, either in 

 food or money, can be but small if it remains under 

 grass ; it can rarely pay for any extraneous labour or 

 support more than the occupier. Moreover, grazing is 

 lazy farming, and though it may leave abundant oppor- 

 tunity for improvements both in the land and the 

 stock, there are never the same openings for increased 



