COURTOWN. 117 



acre, and they pay that for it at the expiration 

 of the leafe. 



Their courfes are : 1. Potatoes. 2. Barley, 

 yielding 10 or 12 barrels. 3. Oats, the pro- 

 duce 10 or 12: and then more crops of oats, 

 or barley and oats, till the foil is exhaufted, 

 when they leave it to turf itfelf, which it will 

 not do under 10 or 15 years. Alio, 1. Sum- 

 mer fallow. 2. Wheat, 7 barrels ; and then 

 fpring-corn crops, till the land is exhaufred. 

 No peafe or beans fown. Not a turnip in the 

 country among common farmers, though the 

 fineft fands and grounds imaginable for them : 

 nor clover. A little flax is fown, generally 

 after potatoes, and the culture of it increafes 

 gradually. 



Potatoes in general put in in the common 

 manner ± but I heard of one or two farmers, 

 who on dry ground plant them with the 

 plough : always dung or pare and burn , no 

 hiring of land for them, only in their own 

 gardens and little fields -, they do not often 

 raife more than enough for half a year, buying 

 for the other half. It is not a fheep country, 

 and no fuch thing as folding known. 



Lime is not ufed, except in the mountains, 

 from Carlow: but marie is very general, a 

 good blue fort, which they fpread amply on 

 the fod, and plough it for wheat. The good 

 farmers' take three crops upon it, but the little 

 ones will take 8 or 10 as long as the land will 

 yield any thing. The deeper they dig the 



marie, 



