Irish Agriculture. 
53 
strongly the importance of abandoning cultivation altogether in 
Ireland, and of turning the whole island into " one vast 
pasture." This view was seconded by the eloquent addresses 
of an eminent nobleman, since deceased, who occupied the 
highest political position in Ireland, and, as it chimed with 
the views of many who were directly interested in the matter, 
they proceeded, with due dispatch, to reduce these theoretical 
opinions into practice ; forgetting altogether that, although 
pasturage is a most important department of farm management, 
it is inadequate, in itself, to increase the production of meat. 
It is true that an extended system of pasturage is not a new 
feature in Irish agriculture. The old Irish Parliament at various 
times passed laws for the purpose of restricting it, rendering it 
compulsory on graziers to cultivate a certain (juantity of land ; 
and I believe that among the sumptuary acts passed by the 
Irish legislature was one which rendered it a penal offt^nce for 
cattle salesmen to hold land within 10 miles of Dublin ; the 
reason evidently being that salesmasters liolding land would 
keep it in pasture, while the land was required to raise food for 
the people of Dublin; carriage of grain, 6cc., from inland parts 
of the country being, at that time, difficult and expensive. It is 
said that this Act is still unrepealed, but, if so, it is quite 
forgotten. 
That a strict adherence to the pasturage system engenders a 
certain degree of apathy with respect to agricultural improve- 
ment scarcely admits of a doubt. This fact has been long 
remarked, for we find Spenser saying, " This keeping of cows 
is, of itself, a very idle life," while Arthur Young has put his 
sentiments on record in the following terms : " These graziers 
are apt to attend to their claret as much as their bullocks, live 
expensively, and, being enabled, from the nature of their busi- 
ness, to pass nine-tenths of the year without any exertion of 
industry, contract such a habit of ease that works of improve- 
ment would be mortifying to their sloth." Mr. Robert Thompson, 
whose agricultural 'Survey of Meath ' was published by the 
Dublin Society — now the Royal Dublin Society — in 1802, 
states that " the labouring cottagers, immediately under gentle- 
men, generally fare better " than those who had no fixed employ- 
ment, but adds in a note, " This remark does not apply to many 
graziers in this country, whose negligence, as to the state of 
their poor labourers is so apparent in the appearance of their 
houses and families, that a stranger visiting this country must 
not only wonder at their pitiable condition, but deplore the little 
prospect there is of amendment." Mr. Thompson, in enume- 
rating the " Obstacles to Improvement," existing in his time in 
Meath, states the following, among others, as " most promi- 
