worth 6d. and the coarsest about 1d. after payment of 1d. per lb. for the two first sorts. The hecklers generally travel about to the houses of poor people to get this work to do. Four men will be taken up 2 days in doing the above quantity. Spinning is performed by women and children; one diligent person will spin about one hank, containing 12 ents, each ent having 120 rounds, from two yards and a half in circumference in a day. If carried then to market, it generally produces 5d. per hank, or a dozen to the spinner, and is generally bought by jobbers or by poor manufacturers. Upwards of £40,000 per ann. in yarn is exported from Sligo to Manchester and Liverpool. It is supposed that there is as much yarn exported raw from Ireland, as is manufactured in it. The first step taken by the manufacturer is to steep the yarn in lukewarm water for a day or two; it is then boiled 12 hours in a strong lee of barilla ashes, after which it is bleached for 3 weeks or a month, and when dry, is dressed and softened by being hung in a frame, and rubbed in a clipped stick, after which it is sorted into different degrees of fineness, first by weight, and then by the eye, when it is ready to be delivered to the weaver, with the recd and geers adapted to manufacturing it. The grist or fineness of the yarn, determines the set or fineness of the reed through which it is to be wrought. The reed is divided into beers, each beer containing 20 splits, each split two threads. These threads are called the warp. The threads thrown across by the shuttle are called the wooft. Five beers are what is commonly called a hundred, the number of which hundred is regulated by the skill of the manufacturer, so as to make the cloth thick or thin in the breadth and the number of these hundreds constitutes the fineness and value of the cloth. N.B. The extremities are from 400 splits in the breadth of one yard to 2500. The rule to ascertain the true value of any given piece of cloth by inspection with a glass. Apply the glass to the cloth, reckon the number of threads in the warp, which are magnified by the glass, and by as many threads as are so counted, so many hundreds is the fineness of the cloth, which hundreds when doubled, and half of the first number added, i.e. 10 threads giving as many hundreds, them doubled make 20, and half added 25. Of so many hanks of yarn does a piece of cloth of 20 yards consist of, fairly and honestly made. Learn the value of yarn, add the weaving and bleaching, and the addition gives the value out of the manufactory. Scutching, 18. a stone, fifty-six stone. Heckling, 8d. a stone for the flax, 1d. per lb. for the tow, 4 lb. of the first to the stone, scutched, or 14 stone, heckled, at 8d. 0 0 0 5 0 0 10 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 16 This if a cottar; but, if not, the rent is £3, which will make it. £13 8 4 14 8 4 Value of the heckled flax, 7d, to 18. average 9d, a lb. or 128. a stone. One hundred sixty-eight pound of tow, at 6d. Very little weaving in Sligo, but a little scattered spinning every where; the women earn 3d. or 4d. a day, by a hank a day. £80,000 of yarn last year exported from the port of Sligo. Price of labour, cottars 5d. others 6d. Heaps of weeds burning all over the country for ashes for boiling the yarn, by poor people. An acre of weeds has been sold for £6 6s. One sixth of the county bog and mountain, the rest 15s. an acre. The farms rise to large ones, that are grazing, but all the tillage is carried on by cottars, or very inconsiderable ones. The courses are: Barony of Corra,' the best in the county; the high lands all limestone. Rent about Ballymoat, 20s. Potatoes yield 26 barrels, at the average price of six shillings, it weighs 10 cwt. Wheat yields six and a half, or seven barrels. Oats 10 ditto. A great plenty of marle, and lime-stone, and lime-stone gravel in all the country, but none used, except by such as are forced to do it by their laudlords. Of these the most generally used is the limestone gravel. A good deal of mountain, improved by little farmers, by their landlord's directions. John Kelly, a little cottar on Mr. Fitzmaurice's estate, is a strong instance of this, and his mode of doing it, has been by paring and burning, and spreading the asies. He then puts in potatoes immediately, gets good crops, then good oats, and would, if he was able, sow grass seeds. 'Corran barony, co. Sligo. CHAPTER XI. Mercra.-Condition of the people.-Sligo.-Falls of Ballasadore.Tanrego.-Fortland.-An idle population.-Scenery of Balbyna.-The Bishop of Killala.-A bare country.-Abundance of fish.-Castlebar. -Wakes.-Lord Altamont at Westport.-Agricultural experiments.— Harrowing by the tail. SUNDA UNDAY, August 26th, to the Rt. Hon. Joshua Cooper's, at Mercra,' who not only received me with the utmost politeness, but was so obliging as to send for a neighbouring gentleman, in order between them, with other assistance, to answer all my questions, which was done in the most attentive and satisfactory manner. About which place the rent of land, on an average, 15s. Some of the mountains, that are not lime-stone, let for very little, 2r. but the lime-stone ones are good land universally, and yield almost as high rent as the rest of the country. Farms in culture are exceedingly small, the poor people divide and take them in partnership, four or five to a plough land of 100 acres, but they subdivide down to five or six acres, and in general all the tillage is done by these little occupiers. There are some large grazing farms up to above 1,000 acres, which are under sheep and bullocks. One-seventh of the county may be reckoned bog, and unimproved mountain, and the other 6-7ths, 15s. Mayo one-third, perhaps half, bog and mountain, and two-thirds, at 12s. Galway more than one-third bog, mountain and lakes. The courses of crops pursued here; 1. Potatoes. 2. Barley. 3. Oats. 4. Oats. 5. Oats. 6. Oats. 7. Oats. 8. Left out seven years to sheep. 1. Potatoes. 2. Flax. 3. Barley. 4. Oats. 5. Oats. 6. Oats. 7. Oats. 8. Oats. 9. Lay out. 1. Potatoes. 2. Flax. 3. Barley. 4. Oats. 5. Oats. 6. Oats. 7. Potatoes. 1. Potatoes. with in Ireland. 1. Potatoes. 2. Barley, which is the best course I have met 1 Apparently Magheraboy, co. Sligo. on summer fallow. Grass land hired for potatoes, at £5, if not an acre, is 7 10 0 PRODUCE. 300 pecks, 56 lb. each, at 6d. per peck If they, which is very common, hire grass land for it, the rent is £4 48. on an average, then Many are planted in bogs that are drained; they are the first they plant, with both lime-stone gravel and dung, the first will not do alone, very little dung will do: the crops are superior in quantity to those from any other land, they will get 50 pecks more than from the grass land. They feed their cows and pigs with them when plentiful. Mr. O'Hara, of Nymphsfield, fatted many bullocks with them, and found that they did exceedingly well. Of barley they sow a barrel per acre, which is here 14 stone, and get on an average 14 barrels an acre. In Terrera' barony they get great crops, sometimes 20 barrels an acre. They sow 2 barrels of 12 stone of oats, the mean produce 10 barrels, some not above 5 or 6. Of wheat they sow 12 stone, and the crop 6 1 Tireragh. |