CHAPTER XV. Archdeacon Oliver at Coolmore.-Poverty of the people.—Beauty of the environs of Corke.-On the way to Killarney.—▲ steep road.Nedeen or Kenmare.-Scenery of Muckross and Killarney.-Disused copper-mines.-The islands in the Lake.-Glena. SEPT EPTEMBER 22d, left Corke, and proceeded to Coolmore', the seat of the Rev. Archdeacon Oliver, who is the capital farmer of all this neighbourhood. No person could be more desirous of procuring me the information I wished, nor any more able to give it me. Mr. Oliver began the culture of turneps four years ago, and found them so profitable that he has every year had a field of them in the broad-cast method, and well hoed. This year they are exceedingly fine, clean, and well hoed, so that they would be no disgrace to a Norfolk farmer. This is the great object wanting in Irish tillage; a gentleman, therefore, who makes so con siderable a progress in it, acts in a manner the most deserving praise that the whole circle of his husbandry will admit. Mr. Oliver has usually drawn his crops for sheep and black cattle; for the former he has spread them upon grass fields to their very great improvement; and the cattle have had them given in stalls. All sorts have done perfectly well on them, insomuch that he is fully convinced of their great importance: he has found that they support the cattle much better than any thing else, to such a degree of superiority, he is determined never to be without a crop. He has always dunged for them, except when he has ploughed up a grass lay, and then he has found it not necessary. In bringing in furzy waste land he has improved very extensively. One instance in particular I shall mention, because it is the best preparation for laying land to grass that I have met with in Ireland: he first dug it and put in potatoes, no manure, the crop middling; and after that cleared it of stones, which were in great numbers, and sowed turneps, of which crop the following are the particulars. "In November, 1771, the Rev. Archdeacon John Oliver (at his residence in the county of Corke) began to cultivate a field for turneps and cabbages; the field contained about 40 English 1 Coolmore, near Ring, co. Cork. acres, but was so full of rocks that only about ten or eleven plantation acres could be tilled, the remainder being a lime-stone quarry; the surface in the part tilled, in general, not above four inches deep, and in the deepest part not above twelve inches over the lime-stone quarry; this ground was planted with potatoes the spring preceding, without any manure, and all done with the apade, and in many parts there was not sufficient covering for them. The ploughing for turneps and cabbages was finished the latter end of December; it remained in that state till the month of March following (1772), when a large quantity of stones were taken out with crows and spades; it was then ploughed a second time; then harrowed with very strong harrows made on purpose; about the latter end of May it was rolled with a wooden roller; on the 11th, 12th, and 13th of June, it was sowed with about one pound and a quarter of seeds to the English acre. When the turneps were in four leaves there appeared more fern and potatoes than turneps, which were weeded out by hand, at a great expence; and in about three weeks after, when the turneps began to bottom, they got a second weeding as before, after which they were again thinned by hand; these different operations were continued till the turneps were about a pound weight, and then they were thinned again, and weeded as often as there was occasion, and now it is imagined they are as great a crop as any in the kingdom, some thousands weighing fourteen pounds per turnep. Part of the same field is sowed in drills, thinned and weeded as the other, but they are not equal to the broad cast, but are a very good crop. Another part of the same field is planted with 20,300 cabbages of different kinds, namely, the flat Dutch, borecole, large late Dutch cabbage, turnep cabbage, and large Scotch cabbage, at three feet between each drill, and two feet in the rows, which is at least one foot too near in the drills, and half a foot in the rows, as they now touch one another this 13th of October. All the said cabbages and turneps were cultivated with the plough, and the cabbages hoed with the garden hoes, and manured mostly with rotten dung; part with horsedung, not half rotten, from the stable; part with cow-dung, not rotten; part with sea-slob and lime mixed; all which manures answer very well. One small part of the field where the cabbages were planted, was broke from the lay last March, got six ploughings and five harrowings; another part four ploughings and three harrowings. 1 Under cabbages. 2 a. 1r. 10 p. . The turnep ground got no manure of any kind, nor was it burned. The foregoing improvements were conducted under the immediate care and management of MAURICE MURRAY." After these turneps he sowed barley, and with the barley, grass seeds; before this improvement the land was worth 10s. an acre, but after it would let for 25s., the grass having succeeded perfectly. Cabbages Mr. Oliver has also cultivated these four years, and with success, but does not find, upon the whole, they succeed so well as turneps, except Reynold's turnep-rooted cabbage, which is of very great use late in the spring, after other sorts are gone. Beans Mr. Oliver has also tried in small quantities, and seem to do pretty well; I saw his crop this year drilled and well managed, and a good produce, enough to give him the expectation of their being an advantageous article. Lucerne he has also tried, but found the trouble of keeping it clean too great to answer the cultivation. Upon manures he has tried an experiment, which promises to be of considerable consequence; upon some land he took in from a creek of Corke harbour, under the slob or sea ooze he dug some very fine blue marle; this he tried for potatoes against dung; the crops to appearance very equal, but upon measuring a spade of each, the part marled yielded 14 lb. but that dunged only 7 lb., but the dunging was not a considerable one. It is an object of prodigious consequence to be able to get potatoes at all with marle. In the cultivation of this root Mr. Oliver has introduced the mode of planting them in drills, two feet and a half asunder, with the plough, and found that the saving of labour is exceedingly great, but that the difference of crop is rather in favour of the common method: an acre which vielded 1,005 weights, the drilled 822, but saving in the seed of the drilled 60 weights, each weight 21 lb. Mr. Oliver has just taken a farm of 400 acres of land, waste or exhausted by the preceding tenant by incessant crops of corn; this land was rented at 1s. 6d. an acre, but Mr. Oliver has tried it at 158., and is at present engaged in making very great improvements on it; draining the wet parts, grubbing furze, fallowing, liming, inclosing, and building offices, doing the whole in the most perfect manner, and will soon make the farm carry an appearance very different from what it ever did before. Ilis fallows for wheat had been well and often ploughed, and of a countenance very different from any lands in the neighbourhood. A year after the date of this journey, having the pleasure of being again with this excellent improver, I had a farther opportunity of becoming better acquainted with his management. I had also gone over an imprevement of his at Duntreleague, near Mitchelstown, where he advanced 300 acres of mountain from £50 or £60 a year to £300 a year, having hired it on a lease for ever; he divided the whole in fields of a proper size by wellmade ditches, doubly planted with quick and rows of trees; the lands were improved with lime, laid down to grass, and let to tenants who pay their rents well; but Mr. Oliver residing at a distance, the trees were very much damaged and hurt by the tenants' cattle. To all appearance this improvement was as completely finished as any in Ireland, and the great profit arising from the undertaking induced the archdeacon to attempt his new one I mentioned above. In that I found a very great progress made: besides an excellent barn of stone and slate, there was a steward's house, stables, &c., and a good farm-yard, walled in; and it was with particular pleasure I saw (it was in winter) large number of cows and young cattle very well littered in it with straw, and feeding on turneps, a thick layer of sea-sand having been spread all over it. The improvement and cultivation of the farm went on apace, especially the liming; the kiln had been burning a twelvemonth, in which time the expence had been as follows: 364 barrels of culm, at 4s.. The quarry is 12 mile English from the kiln; two horses the other Breaking and burning, 88. a week Gunpowder, 18. a month 24 waggon-load of coal cinders, bought at Corke, at 10s. One horse and man carries out 24 barrels a day, at ls. 6d., 242 days .. 73 0 0 46 16 O 2016 O 12 O 18 1 0 The quantity of lime drawn from February 1777 to February 1778 was 5,824 barrels, the expence therefore just 8d. a barrel. ( One Corke barrel of culm, at 4s., used every day, and half a barrel of ashes: the kiln draws 18 barrels a day, 16 for 1 of culm, and 10 for 1 including cinders. This barrel of culm is 6 bushels heaped. Mr. Oliver had an old memorandum, that the price of fuel was three-pence farthing per barrel of lime. Twelve tons of lime-stone produces 50 barrels of roach lime. Nor does the archdeacon trust to lime alone; he buys great quantities of dung and soap ashes in Corke. At the same time I viewed his turnep crops on his own farm, and found them excellent, and many oxen tied in stalls fattening on them, a practice he finds exceedingly profitable; when other graziers sell their bullocks with difficulty, he puts his to turneps, and doubles and trebles their value. In 1777 he had 23 acres of turneps. Before I conclude this account of his spirited exertions, I must add, that if a very few improvers in Ireland have gone through more extensive operations, I have not found one more attentive or more practical, and, upon the whole, scarcely any that come near to him. Land about Coolmore lets from 8s. to 20s. The soil lime-stone. Farms rise from £50 to £300. The courses are, 1. Potatoes, yield 50 barrels. 2. Wheat, 3 barrels: add sometimes, 3. Oats. 4. Lay out for grass. The poor people have most of them land with their cabbins, from four to six acres, which they sow with potatoes and wheat. Not many of them keep cows, but a few sorry sheep for milk; they generally have milk, either of their own, or bought, in summer, and in winter they have herrings; but live, upon the whole, worse than in many other parts of the kingdom. The price of labour 6d. a day the year round; in harvest 8d. Rent of a cabbin 208. Many dairies here, which are generally set at four pound a cow, some four guineas, and near Corke, five pounds. The manures are lime, at 1s. 4d. a barrel roach; if burnt by themselves, 8d. to 10d. lay thirty to fifty barrels. Sea sand is used, sixty to eighty bags, each five pecks, to the acre. Corke dung costs 6d. to 1s. a car load; it is all bought up very care. fully; £10 a year is paid for the cleaning of one street; this argues a very spirited husbandry. Rode to the mouth of Corke harbour; the grounds about |