54 
Irish Agriculture. 
nent :" — " The very extensive farms, everywhere to be met with 
in this district, in the possession of one person, and those, too, 
situated in different places, and some at a great distance from 
the occupier's place of residence. These, indeed," he adds, 
" are chiefly occupied in grazing." 
The remarks made, with reference to this point, at that time 
hold good, for the most part, to the present day ; and the extended 
system of grass farming on arable lands must still be regarded 
as one of the most serious obstacles which exist to the im- 
provement of the agricultural condition of Ireland ; and, I may 
add, the improvement of the social condition of the people. 
When the traveller visits Ireland and passes through any district 
where cultivation on something like a proper system is carried 
on, he finds the towns composed of well-built houses, full of 
shops amply stocked with goods of all kinds, the people em- 
ployed and contented ; but, when he passes into the purely 
grazing districts, he sees towns and villages in a state of decay, 
able-bodied men listlessly lounging about the corners of the 
lanes, and no cheering sign of industry or vitality. 
The increase of wages, which has taken place of late years in 
Ireland, has been frequently set forth as a reason why so much 
land is now laid down to grass. That wages are higher than we 
recollect them to have been is a well-known fact ; still, I think, 
the average rate does not exceed 7s. or 8s. a week. In harvest 
and other busy seasons the rate of wages rises very much above 
this ; but it must be remembered that there are many districts 
where there is no regular employment for labourers, except at 
such seasons as hay-harvest, turf-cutting, or potato-planting, so 
that labourers in those districts are frequently compelled to live 
in idleness, and they naturally seize the opportunity of " a spurt 
of work " to ask and get higher wages than they would expect 
in regular employment. The increase in the wages of labourers 
in Ireland, although considerable as compared with what wages 
were, previous to the thinning of the population through emigra- 
tion, is yet much under the rates current in the arable districts 
of England and Scotland. And there is not so much room for 
employers to grumble on this score as there is on another point, 
which is generally complained of from one end of Ireland to 
the other, namely, that Irish labourers will not do as much for 
their wages as they were wont to do, neither are they so tractable 
as they were in former times. Their great object appears to be, 
as they themselves say, "to put in the day" with as little 
trouble as possible ; and yet the very men we see working in 
the fields in Ireland with their heavy frieze coats on, and 
evidently taking gcwxl care not to injure themselves with hard 
labour, turn out active labourers once they cross the Channel. 
