The Prize System as applied to Small Farmers in Ireland. 395 
farm within five miles of the agricultural school, or centre, was 
eligible to compete. 
The adjudication has been made according to the following 
scale of marks : — 
Marks. 
1. For the cultivation of the land, including the system of cropping, 
the productiveness of the crops, and condition of the land, a 
maximum of 300 
2. For the live-stock, taking into account the quality of the 
animals, their suitability to the farm, and the number main- 
tained .. .. 100 
3. For the farm-offices, embracing the plan, the construction, and 
state of repair 50 
4. For home-made manure, taking into account the position of 
the site of the manure heap as regards the dwelling, &c, the 
mode of collecting and preserving it, and the quantity made .. 50 
5. For the cottage-garden 50 
6. For the dwelling 50 
Total 600 
This, like every scale of the kind, is artificial. On the whole it has 
answered very well. Throughout the entire competition, which 
has lasted for five years, not a single objection has been made to 
the awards. Whenever and wherever it was possible to do so, 
the competitors were called together in the school-room after the 
inspection, the marks given to each in the several sections were 
read to them, and the good and bad features in their modes of 
management pointed out. In this way a spirit of inquiry and 
rivalry has been engendered, the advantages of which it is im- 
possible to describe. 
A few additional words of explanation appear to be de- 
sirable before I state the results of Lord Spencer's experiment. 
Englishmen and Scotchmen who have been accustomed to 
large farms cannot realise the condition of the small farmers 
in many parts of Ireland. In England the average size of the 
holdings may be said to be about 200 acres ; in Ireland it is 
about 30. In round numbers, the total number of holdings in 
Ireland is about 600,000 ; of two-thirds of which (or 400,000) 
not one is above 30 acres. In England the farmhouses are, as a 
rule, good. The dwellings of a vast number of small farmers 
in Ireland are wretched. In this age of progress it is unsatis- 
factory to find that there are in Ireland very many small farmers 
with large families whose dwellings consist of one apartment, in 
which cattle and pigs are housed. I have seen more than once 
the manure pit in the middle of the apartment ! ! ! 
In order that the reader may realise the field for improvement 
in many parts of Ireland, I recapitulate some of the defects in 
the agricultural practices of the country. 
There are four millions of acres of medium land now growing 
