Irish Afinculture. 
51 
of the case require. Thus, the land is ploughed, and rape-seed 
is sown broadcast, assisted bj a little superphosphate. The crop 
of rape is eaten off bv sheep, and the land is then sown out with 
grass seeds, mostly of an inferior kind, and without any further 
preparation. Of course whatever weeds, such as couch, &c., 
exist in the land, remain where they were. A great mistake 
has been made in laying down so much land to permanent grass 
as we find has been done, say within the last 16 years ; but the 
mistake has been rendered greater from the insufficient manner 
in which the land has been prepared for pasture, and from the 
very inferior nature of the grass seeds that have been used. 
Previous want of condition in the soil is easily detected, and it 
is especially marked where the land in former times was con- 
acred." Where this was the rule the pasture to this day has a 
poverty-stricken, hide-bound appearance, and in some places the 
soil has been worn down to the gravelly subsoil, so that little 
grass is produced upon it 
It is necessary to explain what this "con-acre" system was, 
in order fullv to comprehend its effect on the land. Previous to 
the great failure of the potato-crop in 1845-4(3, it was the 
practice with many needy proprietors and graziers to let a 
portion of grass-land to the peasantry in lots of a quarter, half- 
an-acre, or an acre, which were charged at the rate of 8/. to 
10/. per Irish acre.* Operations commenced by skinning the 
surface, which was afterwards burned, and, the ashes being 
spread, potatoes were planted in lazy-beds. This crop was 
succeeded by successive crops of grain — chiefly oats — until the 
crops became too scanty to pay the rent charged, when the land 
was "let out to rest," that is, to gather a surface coating of 
grass. When this system was frequently repeated the active 
soil became gradually worn away under the burning, and, 
although it was evidently a deteriorating system, one by which 
the goose was killed to get at her eggs, yet it was persevered in, 
simply because it brought in a large amount of cash ; sums 
equivalent to the value of the fee-simple being often realised in 
the course of a few years. The lots were charged to each indi- 
vidual by the measurement of a local surveyor, and the owner, 
if hard pres.sed for cash, could always get an advance from some 
ol those petty usurers who were, and are, to be found in many 
parts of Ireland, and who, after deducting 20 or 30 per cent, 
as their share of the plunder, took good care to be paid the 
uttermost farthing by the poor creatures who had taken the 
" con-acre." It was a destructive system for the owners of land, 
and it was a bad one for the people, nor could it have existed in 
* An Irish acre contains 7840 yards, or 1 acre, 2 roods, 19 perches imperial. 
E 2 
