an acre, that if you lime it 80 barrels, and take wheat, barley, and oats, it will then be worth 30s. This is certainly a marvellous improvement! Lord Doneraile knows, from an experiment of his brother's, that it is equally well adapted to boggy bottoms; he had five acres, which he set for 10s. 6d. the whole, and was so hard a bargain to the poor men, that an allowance was made for it. His brother took it, and limed it, and then mowed five tons of hay per English acre, one of the strongest proofs of the benefit of lime that can be given. In his Lordship's park he has a wheel for raising water, an improvement on the Persian, which raises a regular stream 28 feet; the stream which turns it is confined by a double wall to the exact dimension of the boxes, which take in the water, and it works constantly and regularly without trouble or expence. Lord Doneraile has erected a granary upon a new construction, that of a flue in the walls for a fire to air the whole building, and dry any damp corn that may happen to be in it. He dried the walls after building with it perfectly in a short time. This granary is so completely built, that not a mouse can possibly get in it: he has a thorough air, with lattice windows of wire. By the way, these flues are a proof, if one was wanting, how much moister the climate of Ireland is than that of England. He has planted the cluster potatoes, called here bulls and bucks, so much as 6 or 7 acres; gave them to horses, cows, and sheep: the horses that would eat them did well, and in a little time believes would all come very well to them. Fat cows and bullocks did exceedingly well: fat sheep were put to them; but several dying both years, made him leave the practice off. Of other sorts of potatoes, he finds the London lady and the apple to be the best sorts. The London lady is particularly valuable for one circumstance, which is the stalks withering, and the crop being ready to take up, from a month to six weeks before any other sort; consequently, the best sort to plant as a preparative to wheat. Hops he has planted two years ago, in order to see how far they will answer; and expects to be able to get not only good hops, but a great crop. One mode of managing them he has in meditation, which is a good thought, and that is to train them horizontally instead of perpendicularly, like espalier, on account of the storms and blights which hops, in the common way, are subject to from the height. Has compared the rotten lime-stone and lime in a 20 acred field for wheat, 10 of the one and 10 of the other, and found the wheat equal: both very good. Has observed the

common farmers, after manuring with it, to take 12 and 14 crops of white corn running; and then leaving it for grass, which not coming, they complain that it is not good for grass, but burns it up. But Lord Doneraile advised a friend to lay down, after two or three crops, which being done, the grass that followed was perfectly fine.

Lord Doneraile's lime-kiln is one of the compleatest I have any where seen; it is at bottom 16 inches diameter, leads up to 12 feet wide in the buldge, and 20 feet high from the bottom to the buldge, 7 feet from the buldge up, and at the top 9 feet in diameter. Over the top, a roof and a porch to it, and it draws 44 barrels of roach lime a day, which takes 6 of culm; burns for 5 d. a barrel. The culm 28. 5d. a barrel at the kiln. Labour 48. Culm 158. a day.

September 13th, left Doneraile, and went to Colonel Jephson's at Mallow. He was at that time confined with the gout; but his son, Denham Jephson, Esq; (member for Mallow) took every means for my information, in the circumstances I enquired after. About that place:

1. Potatoes on stubbles, or grass dunged. 2. Potatoes. 3. Wheat or Bere. 4. Oats. 5. Oats. 6. Oats.

1. Fallow. 2. Wheat. 3. Oats. 4. Oats. 5. Oats. 6. Oats. The measure the English acre.

Of potatoes they plant 6 common barrels, and get 42 in the crop: sometimes take three or four successive ones. Of wheat. they sow 3 pecks and a half cach, 3 cluggets, each clugget 11 quarts, and get 8 barrels. The crop of bere is 12. Of oats 12. Rents of town parks £2 2s. to £3, other lands 10s. to 30s. average 128. There are many dairies, up to 60 cows, which are all set to dairymen, at 50s. to £3 10s. of good land it will take one acre and a half to feed a cow. They make both butter and cheese, and where the latter is made, no butter, selling the cheese at 4d. a pound. A cow makes one cwt. of butter in the season. When cows are let, none are taken that do not give 2 gallons of milk; good cows give 4 gallons. Colonel Jephson had a cow half bred, between the English long horned and Holdernesse, that was forced to be milked three times a day, and gave 12 gallons a day, many times in the presence of various persons. Every dairyman is allowed a house, a garden of one acre and a

1 Mallow, co. Cork.

half, and grass for a horse, a cow, and some a collop of sheep. Great quantities of lime are used; they lay 100 barrels an acre, at ls. Id. They plough with horses, four or six to a plough. The poor pay 10s. rent for a cabbin, and 20s. for one acre for potatoes; £2 28. for grass for a cow, and 10s. for the winter's hay. They live upon potatoes generally the year through; all of them keep cows and pigs, which latter they feed on small potatoes. Their circumstances are not better than 20 years ago; for though they have now 6d. and then had but 5d. yet the rise is not proportioned to that of rents. Villages of cottars will take farms in partnership in the manner I have often described. The soil of the country is in general lime-stone; but from Knockerera mountain, near Mallow, to Corke, there is no lime-stone.

Leases are thirty-one years, or three lives, and some for three lives and thirty-one years after; and many farms let to middle men, who occupy no part of the land themselves, but re-let it. Above one-third of the county is waste land.

There are collieries about ten miles off, near Kanturk, from which coal is sold at 38. a barrel, it is large and hard. Upon the river Blackwater, there are tracts of flat laud in some places one quarter of a mile broad; the grass every where remarkably fine, and lets at 308. It is the finest sandy land I have any where seen, of a reddish brown colour, would yield the greatest arable crops in the world, if in tillage; it is five feet deep, and has such a principle of adhesion, that it burns into good brick, yet it is a perfect sand. In floods much of it is overflown. The banks of this river, from its source to the sea, are equally remarkable for beauty of prospect, and fertility of soil.

There is but little manufacturing in Mallow; even spinning is not general. Mr. Jephson manures his lands very highly with all sorts of dung and fullage of the streets of Mallow, which is constantly bringing away; by means of this regular attention, united with the goodness of the soil, he has brought it into that high degree of heart, indicated by the rent, at which it would let. The whole is divided into fields, of a moderate size, with double quick hedges, well planted with trees, and kept in the most perfect degree of neatness; between the hedges are gravel walks, so that there is a planted communication about all

the fields; the gates are neat and light, and every attention preserved to give the whole the appearance of a ferme orné. The quantity of tillage is not considerable, but his crops very great, barley up to twenty barrels per acre. Mules he finds more useful and hardy than horses; has some very fine ones. Mr. Jephson has weighed to the dragoons, at the barracks, from twenty-eight acres of grass, three and a quarter tons of hay, per English acre. He has kept a particular account of his domain, and has kept his deer, horses, cows, house, &c. and sold to the amount of 558. an acre besides. I walked to the spring in the town to drink the water, to which so many people have long resorted; it resembles that of Bristol, prescribed for the same cases, and with great success. In the season there are two assemblies a week. Lodgings are five shillings a week each room, and those seemed to be miserably bad. Board thirteen shillings a week. These prices, in so cheap a country, amazed me, and would, I should fear, prevent Mallow from being so considerable, as more reasonable rates might make it, unless accommodations proportionable were provided. There is a small canal, with walks on each side, leading to the spring, under cover of some very noble poplars. If a double row of good lodgings were erected here, with public rooms, in an elegant style, Mallow would probably become a place for amusement, as well as health.

CHAPTER XIV.

Mr. Gordon at New Grove.-Blarney Castle.-Mr. Trent at Dunkettle.-Scenery of Lota.-Pictures at Dunkettle.-The Earl of Shannon at Castlemartyr.-Bullocks drawing by the horns.-Mr. Longfield at Castlemary.-Potatoes for stock.-Lord Inchiquin at Rostellan.— Cork.-Commerce and manufactures.

EPTEMBER 14th, to New Grove,' the seat of Robert Gordon, Esq; in whom I met with the greatest zeal for giving me a correct information. Passing, at some distance, a very large house building, to the right of the road, in a good situation, by Sir Robert Dean. New Grove is an entire new improvement of Mr. Gordon's, the whole place, some years ago, being a waste moor, or mountain, as it is called in Ireland.

Mr. Gordon took it for improvement; the soil and bog five to nine spits deep, and under it a black earth, or a reddish sand, and in some a whitish clayey substance, but not marle; many springs in it, which were carried off by drains; and then the whole surface of turf cut out, and carried to Cork; cutting, &c. 30s. a 100, and sold there at £5, this was done in order to get lime, which is not upon the land, and by this means the lime came to seven-pence halfpenny a barrel; found many stones and great roots, and timbers, which were all cleared away, and the land ploughed with oxen, before winter; then left the winter three ploughings given in the spring, and fifty barrels of lime, spread and sown with oats and clover; the crop very great; could be sold however, for £4 an acre; the clover fine. This was cut for hay, and the second weighed 231 lb. per English perch square, and a horse that was starved nine hours, eat in twenty-four hours 107 lb. And after these two cuttings, there was a third for soiling with in October; it was then sowed with a second crop of oats, and that with clover which was left, and has been mown every year for eleven years since; this was one field in particular, but all in the same manner, and would let for one pound an acre readily; all expences of the

1 New Grove, now Kilquane, co. Cork.