Irish Ayriculture. 
43 
follow with any hope of having a crop. In some parts of 
Ireland, and especially in Ulster, it is usual when " moulding- " 
the potato beds to lay in cabbage plants along the " brows " 
or edges of the beds, so that the heads of the cabbages overhang 
the alleys ; and it is often surprising to see the quantity of food 
which is produced in this way, useful either for the people 
themselves or their live stock. Turnips and mangolds may 
frequently be found growing on beds similar to potato lazy-beds, 
and when the seed has been sown across the beds, with sufficient 
space between each row, and the plants afterwards properly 
thinned and weeded, very good crops of roots are grown in this 
way on thin soils. These points have to be taken into considera- 
tion before the " lazy-bed " system is absolutely condemned. In 
reclaiming pieces of rough land, I have occasionally resorted to 
it, and found that when applied to the cultivation of potatoes on 
such land, it greatly facilitated after operations. 
One of the greatest drawbacks which the smaller class of land 
occupiers labour under is the lack of suitable power for the 
cultivation of their holdings. In most cases each man keeps 
a horse, and joins with a neighbour who is similarly circum- 
stanced when he requires to plough his land, or do anything 
where two horses are necessary. Now the horses kept by such 
farmers are mostly weak w'eedy animals, quite unfit to allow the 
land to be cultivated to a proper depth. In fact, this statement 
holds good of many farms which cannot be called small farms ; 
but, with special reference to the latter, I have long held the 
opinion, from what I have seen in such cases, that there is 
nothing equal to a bullock for the small farmer. Carting and 
everything has been done by a bullock on small farms where I 
have known such to be emploved ; and there is this advantage in 
an ox, that when not required, he may be readily sold or fattened ; 
whereas a poor, weak horse is not always saleable, and when old is 
worth little more than the value of his hide and bones. Donkeys 
are kept by small farmers in many parts of Ireland, and are 
remarkably well kept in most instances, so that they get through 
a great deal of work, particularly in drawing the produce of the 
farm from the field to the homestead, or to market. Very small 
holdings are generally cultivated by the manual labour of the 
occupiers and their families. Spade cultivation is usually looked 
upon as the most efficient of all modes of culture, but such 
cannot be said of most of the small holdings in Ireland where 
it is in operation. One of the first things the practical in- 
structors had to do after the famine years, was to take a spade 
and show the people how to dig the ground, and even yet we 
still see them inserting the spade in a slanting direction ; so that 
the actual depth of soil turned over does not exceed 4 or 5 inches, 
