402 
Illustrations of Irish Farming. 
occupiers, who mostly emijjrated, or became labourers, while not 
n few succumbed, as in other parts of the country, to the com- 
bined effects of hunger and pestilence. To permit people to 
struggle on in such a hopeless state was not a kindness to them, 
jior was it conducive to the general welfare of the community. 
As soon as Lord Lucan got the land into his own possession, 
he commenced operations to put it into shape, for the purpose 
•of letting it as one farm. Farm offices of a substantial nature 
Avere built, stone fences erected, dividing the farm for the most 
part into fields of 30 acres, and the land was also partly drained, 
and brought to some extent into a regular system of cropping ; 
the cost of Lord Lucan's improvements being over 10,000/. 
. At the time when Mr. Simson took the farm, the nearest 
railway station was over 30 miles distant, but the Irish Great 
Northern and Western Railway has since been opened, so that 
the distance from the nearest station, Claremorris, is about 
8 miles. This has proved a great accommodation to the farm 
in sending live-stock and other kinds of produce to market. 
Of the 1800 acres of arable land, 300 are kept in permanent 
grass, as pasture for sheep. The remaining 1500 acres are 
cultivated under a rotation. The breadth under turnips is 
usually about 220 acres, and of grain crops about 400 acres. The 
grass break of the rotation extends over two years, or even over 
three years if possible. Turnips are frequently grown as the first 
crop after lea, even old pasture, when such has been broken up, 
and Mr. Simpson prefers this plan to the usual mode of taking 
oats after lea, followed by turnips. In preparing the lea for 
turnips, the first thing done is to skim plough 3 inches deep in 
December, and following each skimming plough is another 
which turns a furrow 9 or 10 inches deep over the first. This 
buries the grassy sod, which rots in the bottom, supplying after- 
wards a large amount of plant-food, while the surface becomes 
*' like an onion-bed " in spring, easily worked and easily cleaned. 
Mr. Simson has found that in working the land in spring for 
turnips, if he harrows the land immediately after cross-ploughing 
without an interval between the operations, he is sure to have 
wire-worm, but if he allows the land to lie untouched for the 
space of a week or ten days after cross-ploughing, before putting 
the harrows to work, he is free from insects, and the land also 
works more kindly. The turnip crop in all cases is well manured 
with dung and artificial manures — guano and bone manure. 
Sowing swedes begins about the 20th of April. They are grown 
in 28-inch drills (ridges), and are thinned out at 14 inches 
apart, yellow turnips at 12 inches, and later sown at 10 inches. 
The crop is partly consumed by sheep netted on the ground. 
When turnips follow lea, the next crop is wheat, with which 
