Clare Island Survey — Agriculture and its History. 5 35 



" Lime is much used in the province of Munster, as in other parts of 

 Ireland, so far to manure the ground withall, where the sea-sand likewise is 

 greatly used to the same end, not only in places lying on the seaside, but even 

 ten, twelve, and fifteen miles into the land, whether it is carried in some 

 places by boats, and in others upon carts, the charges being sufficiently recom- 

 pensed by the profit comming from it. For they used it for the most part only 

 upon very poor land, consisting of cold clay, and that above half a foot deep : 

 which land having been three or four times plowed and harrowed (ha the same 

 manner as is usual to be done with fallow) the sand is strawed all over very 

 thinly, a little before the sowing time : the which being done, that land 

 bringeth very good corn of all sorts, not only Eye and Oates, but even Barley 

 and Wheat, three yeares one after another ; and having lyen the fourth year 

 fallow, for many years after it produceth very clean and sweet grass ; whereas 

 formerly, and before it was thus manured, it produceth nothing but moss, 

 heath, and short low furze : which herbs are fired upon the ground, and the 

 ground stubbed, before it is plowed the first time." 1 



Still more interesting is Boate's reference to marl and marling, a practice 

 at its height towards the end of the eighteenth century and still in vogue in 

 some parts of Ireland. Of marl, Boate says : — 



" It hath from antient times been greatly used for manuring of land both 

 in France and England. . . . The same also is stil very usual in sundry parts 

 of England, being of an incomparable Goodness : The which caused the 

 English, who, out of some of those places where Marie was used were come to 

 live in Ireland, to make diligent search for it, and that with good success at 

 last ; it having been found out by them within these few years, in severall 

 places ; first in the Kings -county, not far from the Shanon, where being of a 

 gray colour, it is digged out of the Bog : And in the County of "Wexford, where 

 the use of it was grown very common before this Rebellion, especially in the 

 parts lying near the sea ; where it stood them in very good steed, the land of 

 itself being nothing fruitfull. For although the ground (for the most part) 

 is a good black earth, yet the same being but one foot deep, and having under- 

 neath a crust of stiff yellow clay of half a foot, is thereby greatly impaired in 

 its own goodness. In this depth of a foot and a half next under the clay, 

 lyeth the Marie, the which reacheth so far downwards, that yet no where they 

 are come to the bottom of it. It is of a blew colour, and very fat (which as 

 in other ground, so in this, is chiefly perceived when it is wet), but brittle and 

 dusty when it is dry r 



" The marie is layed upon the land, in heaps by some before it is plowed, 

 by others after, many letting it lye several moneths ere they plow it again, 



1 Ireland's Natural History, original edition, p. 99. ■ Ibid., p. 101. 



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