440 
Past and Present State of Af/riculture in Ireland. 
expectations, the depression becoming permanent, it appeared in 
the end that those who had in the first instance made a liberal 
abatement to their tenants, and thereby enabled them to preserve 
sufficient capital for the cultivation of the land, had acted the 
wisest part; nevertheless, in every case the reduction of rent bore 
no proportion to the reduced price of landed produce, and the 
greatest exertions of the tenant became necessary if he calculated 
on continuing to hold possession of his farm. The fall, there- 
fore, in prices of agricultural produce, and the reluctance of 
tenants to give up their lioldings when no better prospect ap- 
peared elsewhere, had the natural eftect of turning the atten- 
tion of the farmers to increase the produce of their farms as 
the only means of meeting the change of circumstances that 
had taken place. This, however, could only be accomplished 
by an improved system of agriculture; in regard to which, 
though a slight improvement had taken place along the north- 
east coast from its proximity to Scotland, and the constant inter- 
course of the inhabitants, yet in districts but little removed to the 
westward, and throughout all the rest of the kingdom, the most 
thorough ignorance prevailed, and the old exhausting svstem, 
as practised in the days of Arthur Young, was everywhere as 
much followed as it ever had been at the time of his Agricultural 
Tours. * Many tenants, therefore, finding it impossible to pay their 
rents by such means as they had hitherto used, and not having 
* That this picture is not overcharged may be seen from the report of 
the Agriculturist of the Roscommon Union Farming Societj^ inserted by the 
' Royal Agricultural Improvement Society of Ireland' in their report for the 
year 1842, p. 53, of which the following is an extract : — 
" Roscommon Union Farming 5oci(?/j/.— During the latter part of the year 
the Committee employed the Local Agriculturist in inspecting all those 
parts of the Union to which his duties had not called him before, and in 
reporting the general state of agiiculture in the district, with reference 
chiefly to the peasantry and other small holders of land. His reports give 
a melancholy account of the ruinous system of tillage practised throughout 
the Union, which may well account lor a great deal of the poverty ev.ery- 
where visible. The rotation generally followed is, — first year, potatoes, 
either manured or the land burned, — second year, potatoes without 
manure, if the soil be fertile enough to produce them, and, if not, a crop 
of oats, — third year, oats, — fourth year, oats, — fifth year, oats, — and so on 
till the land can produce no more. It is then allowed to rest, that is, it is 
left wild, without seed of any sort, which is called pasture, and on which a 
cow is turned out, and expected to give milk. After a few years, when 
the land again becomes green, it is again broken up and subjected to the 
same treatment. 
" A Scotch or English agiriculturist would find it difficult to solve the 
problem, how land under such a system could pay rent ; nor would he 
wonder that the unfortunate tiller is so often reduced to starvation. 
" Your Committee also find from the report of the Agriculturist, that in 
many parts of the Union the system of joint-tenantry prevails ; and where 
this is the case improvement is quite hopeless." 
