48 
Irish Affrictdture. 
Those who are accustomed to a system oi cattle-rearing where 
the winter food consists of roots supplemented by artificial food, 
are aware that a given number of acres under a system of that 
kind will maintain a greater number of animals than would be 
maintained if the cattle had nothing to depend on except the 
pasture for their keep throughout the year. This, therefore, I 
believe to be the great defect in the Irish system of rearing stock. 
Setting aside, altogether, the fattening of cattle for the butcher 
during winter, and looking at it merely as a question of rearing 
store cattle, it is evident that a supplv of winter food, such as 
turnips, (Sec, would enable Irish farmers to keep an increased 
amount of stock, and thereby produce more animals to meet the 
demand for stores, whether these were afterwards to be finished 
on Irish pastures or in English farm-yards. For example, on a 
farm in Kildare, consisting of 500 imperial acres, which has been 
for some years in a high state of cultivation, chiefly under a five- 
shift course, including two vears grass, from 700 to 800 sheep are 
kept all the j ear round, more than half of which are fatting sheep, 
besides from 60 to 80 head of cattle, chiefly fatting beasts, and 
the horses required for working the farm. Under the old system, 
when this farm was in grass, the stock usually consisted of about 
300 hoggets during summer and autumn, and six or eight head 
of young cattle through the winter. No sheep were kept during 
w inter. Each of the summer-grazed hoggets required, it thus 
appears, \"r imperial acre, while under the present system, I 
found, on visiting the farm, that a field of two-vear-old grass, 
of about 40 imperial acres in extent, had kept 240 wethers of a 
year old from the beginning of April until October, besides six 
draught colts, which ran in the field for three months. The farm 
consists of a warm, drv, limestone soil, which produces excellent 
crops of all kinds, particularly of turnips and artificial grasses, but 
which, like much land in Ireland, is not suited to lie out in per- 
manent pasture. Other illustrations of this point will afterwards 
be brought forward ; but I may be permitted to quote a few very 
appropriate remarks, in connection with this department of the 
subject, from a Prize l^ssay by the late Mr. Thomas ^Barnes, 
the well-known breeder of Sliorthorns, on "the breeds of cattle 
and slieep Ijest adapted to Ireland." * Mr. Barnes's essay was 
written twenty-five years ago, and referring to the introduction 
of Shorthorns, and some objections which were made to the breed, 
he said : — " There are many districts where the natural pasturage 
is defective, but there are few districts, comparatively speaking, 
where an improved system of ajrriculture might not supply a 
sufficiency of artificial food for all their wants, and no breed, yet 
* ' Tmnsactions of tlie Eoyal Agricultural Improvement Society of Ireland, for 
184S.- 
