as affecting Agriculture in Ireland. 
391 
fore the winter, since it is certain farmers have not food for half 
of them. 
The same causes that have given us plenty of grass have made 
the potato crop a great failure. There has not been so much 
blight since the famine as last year and this, and the crop has 
been very bad. I think fewer potatoes will be grown in future, 
which again will lead to less cultivation and more and better grass. 
In spite of all the miseries of the famine, farmers and 
labourers alike have since, as 'far as they could, gone back to 
the old conacre potato system. This is the explanation why for 
years the statistical returns have shown a regular increase in the 
average of potatoes ; only as potatoes did not grow well enough 
to last the whole year the system could not fully re-establish 
itself as of old. Some modification to supply food in spring 
and summer, when there were no potatoes, was unavoidable. A 
few sacks of Indian meal, bought on credit, was the means used. 
The terms for farmers' labourers in this district have been 3*. 
per week and the man's food at the farmhouse ; the cabin, 
charged &d. per week, and the conacre another %d. per week, 
being stopped by the farmer out of the 3s. On the balance, 
with such potatoes as grew, wife and children existed. Of course 
there were some minor privileges — pig, cocks and hens, &c. 
The strangest thing is that many labourers preferred such 
terms from small farmers to 8s. or 9s. a week, with free house, 
potato-land, &c., from others. I believe the secret is, that there 
was real work in the one case, and no real work, but half-idle 
dawdling in the other. This year the potatoes have failed again 
in earnest, but the people are now so few the effect will not 
be the same as at the famine. The 3s. per week, however, has 
broken down, as the labourers have no potatoes. Labourers can 
now be had in plenty for any job paying fair wages, and next 
spring will show a larger emigration to America than for years 
before. 
It may seem presumptuous in one mainly connected with Irish 
farming even to offer a hint to English farmers, but I cannot 
help saying that I think in many parts of England the difficul- 
ties as to labour, &c., are the same as our difficulties, and the 
remedies that suit us will also suit them. It seems a safe gene- 
ral conclusion that wherever grass will grow well, more grass 
will lessen labour. Where permanent grass is attainable with 
difficulty, the Scotch five-course rotation instead of the Norfolk 
four-course, i.e. two years' grass instead of one, must save near 
one-fifth of the labour on a farm. 
More grass, with higher manuring and more cake, seems to 
me the remedy, wherever possible, for dear labour, at a time of 
great demand for all grass products. 
