The Husbandry as described by Dean Swift. 253 



is twelve shillings, oats eight shillings, hay six 

 shillings (near towns ten shillings), and flax 

 sixteen shillings the acre. In some instances 

 the tithes on wheat and flax have reached 

 twenty shillings the acre. In Leinster, potatoes 

 do not pay tithe. The composition on all other 

 produce must, however, be considered as ex- 

 orbitant ; and while it has a prohibitory opera- 

 tion on the production of corn by large farmers, 

 it becomes oppressive, in the highest degree, 

 on small occupiers, who can employ the prin- 

 cipal part of their land in no other way. The 

 annual value of ecclesiastical property in Ire- 

 land would suffer great reduction, were the 

 number of small occupations consolidated into 

 proper farms, of one or two hundred acres each, 

 which would enable tenants with capital to re- 

 store the present lands under the plough to 

 grass, and by this means avoid the increasing 

 demands of the clergy, and the tyrannous ex- 

 actions of the proctors. 



It is curious to refer to the state of opinions 

 respecting the husbandry of Ireland a hundred 

 years ago. About this period Dean Swift, in 

 his Drapier's Letters, complains of the advance 

 of rents, and the depopulation, as likely to be 

 continent on converting so much arable land 

 into grazing farm". Little was it conjectured 



