Nov. 16th. CASTLE HYDE.-The farmer lets his acre of potatoe-land to the labourer at a fixed price, afterwards he hires the tythe of the proctor, and exacts a second rent from the cotter. Mr. Hyde knows many instances where twenty shillings per acre have been extorted in this manner for white corn, and it therefore appears that middle proctors give rise to an evil which affords great cause of complaint.

Nov. 17th. CORK.-The potatoes in this country are dug and collected by Kerrymen, who earn, during the height of the season, eight shillings per week and their board, but as the season draws towards a close, they get only four shillings.

Nov. 18th. CASTLE HYDE.-Tythe here twelve shillings per English acre. The proctor makes his bargain in such a manner as to keep pace with the improvements of any gentleman resident in his parish; but a heavy burthen is by these means thrown upon the poor. This difference creates great discontent.

The hogs throughout the whole neighbourhood of Bantry, Cork, Cove, and Castlemartyr, as far as this place, are a miserable long-legged, narrow-backed, ill-shaped breed of animals, and they pervade the whole south of Ireland. Butter firkins are made of American timber, and manufactured at Cork. A considerable quantity of wheat seems to be cultivated in this neighbourhood.

Mr. Fitzgerald lets a dairy at £8. per cow. The potatoes in this part appear to be of a peculiarly dry and good quality; they are of the red apple kind, a sort lately introduced. Two or three barrels per acre are employed as seed.

There are here many orchards, and the people make cyder.

CASTLEMARTYR.-Lord Shannon carries on his agricultural enterprises with great liberality and spirit. I saw here a haggard full of corn, Devonshire cattle, and South Down sheep, all which are marks of improvement.

Nov. 18th. CASTLEHYDE.-The late Mr. Hyde gave 600 guineas for the celebrated race-horse Diamond, and after making 2000 by him, sold him for 1000.

Nov. 7th. CORK.-In this district hemp does not appear to pay so well as flax; of the latter 1200 tons are raised. It is found that the plants of hemp cannot be too close, as they are thereby prevented from throwing out branches.

Nov. 3d. CORK.-Came to this city from Macroom, across a cultivated country, where I was much struck with the difference between it and the mountainous district I had left. Cork lies in a hollow, and the water in general is brackish and bad. There are gates at each entrance, but no police for the preservation of good order has yet been established. A considerable quantity of barley is raised in the neighbourhood; it is purchased by the brewers and distillers in small parcels at a time, but the gate is very great.

aggre

Nov. 6th. DOUGLASS.-I examined some hemp raised on an acre and a quarter of land by Mr. Bernard, and on measuring the stalks found some of them to be 5 feet 6 inches in length; it was the female plant, the male affords the strongest hemp.

VI. DISTRICT.-TABLE of the PRODUCE of WHEAT.

VI. DISTRICT.-TABLE of the PRODUCE of OATS.

AVERAGE Quantities of Seed used, and of the Produce per Acre,
of the Sixth District, by the English Acre.

This district comprehends some parts of Tipperary, together with the Queen's and King's Counties, which, on the whole, produce a good deal of corn that finds its way to Limerick, where there is a considerable market for grain. In this district I observed some of the best farming in Ireland, with much more attention to a systematic course of cropping and keeping the land in good heart; oxen and horses are used for the plow, the former generally preceding the latter; Sir Charles Coote says, that this is done to make them step out quickly:* I should have sup posed but for this information, they had been placed before the horses for the purpose of impeding their pace. Near Roscrea turnips are seen, but they are very sel dom hoed.

OCT. 10th, 1808. CANGOR PARK, NEAR ROSCREA-This part of the county of Tipperary has a much greater resemblance to England than any other district of Ireland. I observed hedge-rows and good fallows for wheat, which would have done credit to any country The rent of land is about forty shillings per acre; ninety acres are considered as a large tillage farm; leases are for three lives, but beginning to be granted for twenty-one years and one life.

The culture of turnips is increasing much in this part of the country, but they are seldom hoed; the land appears to be excellently well adapted for them, and as they are considered, when used for feeding on the land, as the produce of agistment, and not separated from the freehold; this forms a strong inducement to raise them. The cultivation of clover is chiefly confined to gentlemen.

* Sir Charles Coote's Survey of the Queen's County, p. 157.

OCT. 11th. CASTLE LAUGH, TIPPERARY.-The barony of Duharra is not limestone, but a rich soil manured with shells taken from the river Shannon, the rent from

three to four guineas per acre. I observed here sheep-folds, inclosed with fences made from the roots of bog-deal, split and twisted into cords, which are then worked through each other so as to form a kind of net-work.*

OCT. 12th.-Mr. Parker's father improved a mountain property by dredging up the matter found in the bed of the river Shannon; it consists of marl mixed with small shells of the buccina kind, which, as the level of this lake is 120 feet above the high water mark, must belong to some fresh water species of animal. On the other side of Limerick this manure has become universal in the barony.

OCTOBER 12th. BALLYVALLEY.-The land between Castlelaugh and Killaloe lets, from the foot of the mountain almost to its summit, at a rent of between one guinea and 37s. per acre. Land near the river lets at three guineas.

OCT. 13th. CANGOR-PARK, NEAR ROSGREA.-I observed this day some men carrying stooks or sheaves of oats on their backs to a cock in the field, which they afterwards carted home, and then threshed. I saw one man sowing after a plough; he dropped the seed from a bag, sprinkling it over the ground like flour from a drudging box.

APRIL 2, 1809. LITTLETON GLEBE.-There is much barren mountain to the right, between Fethard and Cashell; but in the neighbourhood of that town the land is exceedingly good. A herd gave me the following account of his expences: Grass for two cows four guineas each, for two heifers three pounds, grass for a pig eleven shillings and four-pence halfpenny, rent of two acres three guineas each, tythe thirteen shillings. He has four boys, to whom his master pays eight-pence per day, besides ten-pence to himself. The ashes of the sulphureous coal called stonecoal are not a manure for land.

APRIL 4th. ROSCREA. Wheat which grows on a limestone substratum is of a superior quality.

APRIL 5th. GLOSTER.-Mr. Lloyd pays those labourers who are his tenants sixpence a day, and charges them twenty-five shillings a year per acre for their potatoe-gardens. In some parts of the King's and the Queen's Counties the land is divided, as is often the case between baronies, by what is termed "the fall of the drop:" that is, in mountainous districts, according to the declivity by which the water runs off; in the Queen's County it is to the west, in the King's to the east.

In King's County I met a cabbage-seller who paid fifty-two shillings per quarter

* In some parts of the north of Scotland ropes are made of the same substance, after it has been split into thin slips, rendered pliable by immersing them in water. They are employed chiefly for tethering animals. They are cheap but they soon rot and break. In the same country ropes are made of the roots of heath and of horses' hair; the latter are not injured by wet.