had drawn up a memoir upon making cyder, from considerable experience, at my request wrote to him for a copy of it, which I have since received, with his permission to insert it in this work.

The following is an abridgement of the account.

"Let apples of every species hang till they are ripe, and begin to drop; let them be gathered perfectly dry, and if convenient, in the heat of the day, when warmed in the sun; when gathered let them lie in heaps for one, two, three, or four weeks, according to their degrees of firmness, so as to undergo a moderate fermentation; let the moisture be carefully wiped off, and each species separated (if the quantity of fruit in your orchard be sufficient to admit it) and then ground in a mill, or pounded in troughs; but the first the best method, because less of the pulp is broke, and the liquor will flow clearer from the bags; by pressing the fruit of each distinct species so separated, the cyder will undergo one uniform fermentation.

When the fruit are sufficiently broke for pressing, let them lie forty-eight hours before they be pressed; this will add to that deep richness of colour, which to the eye is pleasing in cyder; then let the fruit so broke, having stood forty-eight hours, be pressed in hair cloth bags; as the juice is thus pressed out, let it be poured into large vessels, usually called keevcs, to undergo the fermentation; three of these vessels are necessary in every orchard, one to contain the liquor in its state or course of fermentation, while a second is filling from the press, and the third to contain the pummage before it be pressed; three keeves, containing five or six hogsheads each, will serve for an orchard that yields sixty or seventy hogsheads of cyder. The expence of these vessels made of double boards, hooped with iron, or strong ash hoops, will not be very considerable; if the weather should prove cold, the fermenting keeves should be covered with bags, &c. in order to quicken the fermentation, which will be compleated in six or seven days if the weather be temperate, provided no new or unfermented cyder be put into the keeve, which above all things should be carefully avoided; when the fermentation is over, the liquor will be fine, and should then be racked off into very clean hogsheads, smoaked with brimstone matches; the hogsheads should not be bunged or stopt close till all symptoms of fermentation cease; and in three weeks or a month it should be a second time racked, still observing to smoak the hogsheads with brimstone,

1776.]

PASSAGE TO MILFORD HAVEN.

417

then the hogsheads should with the greatest care be very closely stopped; the keeves must be entirely emptied before the new pressed cyder is poured into them. The great secret in making good cyder, is to prevent or mitigate its fermentations, the first excepted; and nothing will so effectually do this, as repeated racking from the foul lec.

Do not press wildings 'till Candlemas, or until they begin to rot; and when the juice is pressed out, let it be boiled in a furnace for one hour, before it be suffered to work or ferment, and that will greatly soften the acrimony of its juice."

Mr. William Atkinson, of Mount Wilkinson, near Ballycanvan, scems to be very attentive to the orchard husbandry; from two acres he had twenty-one hogsheads of cyder, and the same year reaped twenty barrels of wheat under the trees, a produce little short of £50, or £25 an acre; three and a half barrels of his apples (each 6 bushels) made a hogshead of cyder. A common practice here in planting orchards, is to set cuttings, three or four feet long, half way in the ground, of the cackagee, jergonelle, or any set that grows rough and knotty in the wood; they call them pitchers, they rarely fail, and yield well and soon.

Mr. Bolton carried me to the houses of some fishermen on the harbour, one of whom had planted around his cabbin for shelter, three years ago, some willow cuttings, the growth of which amazed me; I measured them 21 feet high, and not crooked or bending like common sorts, but strait as a fir. I took half a dozen cuttings with me to England, to compare it with the sorts common with us.

October 19th, the wind being fair, took my leave of Mr. Bolton, and went back to the ship; met with a fresh scene of provoking delays, so that it was the next morning, October 20th, at eight o'clock, before we sailed; and then it was not wind, but a cargo of passengers that spread our cails. Twelve or fourteen hours are not an uncommon passage, but such was our luck, that after being in sight of the lights on the Smalls, we were by contrary winds blown opposite to Arklow sands; a violent gale arose which perfectly blew a storm, that lasted thirty-six hours, in which, under a reefed mainsail, the ship drifted up and down wearing, in order to keep clear of the coasts.

No wonder this appeared to me, a fresh-water sailor, as

a storm, when the oldest men on board reckoned it a violent one: the wind blew in furious gusts; the waves ran very high; the cabbin windows burst open, and the sea pouring in set every thing afloat, and among the rest a poor lady, who had spread her bed on the floor. We had however the satisfaction to find, by trying the pumps every watch, that the ship made little water. I had more time to attend these circumstances than the rest of the passengers, being the only one in seven who escaped without being sick. It pleased God to preserve us; but we did not cast anchor in Milford Haven till Tuesday morning the 22d, at one o'clock.

It is much to be wished that there were some means of being secure of packets sailing regularly, instead of waiting till there is such a number of passengers as satisfies the owner, and captain; with the post-office packets there is this satisfaction, and a great one it is; the contrary conduct is so perfectly detestable, that I should suppose the scheme of the Waterford ones can never succeed.

Two years after, having been assured this conveyance was put on a new footing, I ventured to try it again; but was mortified to find that the Tyrone, the only one that could take a chaise or horses (the Countess being laid up) was repairing, but would sail in five days; I waited, and received assurance after assurance that she would be ready on such a day, and then on another; in a word, I waited twenty-four days before I sailed; moderately speaking, I could, by Dublin, have reached Turin or Milan as soon as I did Milford in this conveyance. All this time the papers had constant advertisements of the Tyrone sailing regularly, instead of letting the publick know that she was under & repair. Her owner seems to be a fair and worthy man, he will therefore probably give up the scheme entirely, unless assisted by the corporation, with at least four ships more, to sail regularly with or WITHOUT passengers; at present it is a general disappointment; I was fortunate in Mr. Bolton's acquaintance, passing my time very agreeably at his hospitable mansion; but those who, in such a case, should find a Waterford inn their resource, would curse the Tyrone, and set off for Dublin. The expences of this passage are higher than those from Dublin to Holyhead: I paid,

Tour in the year 1777.-Dublin to Mitchelstown.-Furness.-The turf of the Curragh.-At Shaen Castle again.-Gloster.-A lawless people that will not betray one another.-Johnstown.—The truth about Mr. Yelverton's famous crop.-In praise of the Shannon.—Mr. Head at Derry.-How to make good a deficiency in income.

1777.

UPON a second journey to Ireland this year, I took the

opportunity of going from Dublin to Mitchelstown, by a route through the central part of the kingdom which I had not before sufficiently viewed.

Left Dublin the 24th of September, and taking the road to Naas, I was again struck with the great population of the country, the cabbins being so much poorer in the vicinity of the capital than in the more distant parts of the kingdom. Mr. Nevill, at Furness,' had, in a very obliging manner, given directions for my being well informed of the state of that neighbourhood. He is a landlord remarkably attentive to the encouragement of his tenantry.

He allows half the expence of building houses on his estate, which has raised seven of stone and slate, and nine good cabbins, 35 by 16, at £27 each. He gives annually three premiums of £7, £5, and £3, for the greatest number of trees, planted in proportion to the number of their acres, and pays the hearth money • Co. Kildare. * Forenaghts or Furnace, co. Kildare.

1 Co. Cork.

of all who plant trccs. He also allows his tenants 40s. an acre for all the parts of their farm that want gravelling, and does the boundary fence for them, but he is paid in his rent very well for this. The following particulars I owe to him.

The soil in general, for some miles every way, is a lime-stone gravel, which does very well for wheat; lets at an average at 20s., that is, from 10s. to 40s. There are some tracts of green stone land, and a little clay. Rents rose till 1772, but have since rather fallen: the whole county through may be 14s. or 15s. If all now was to be let, it would be 20s.

Farms rise from 15 acres to 500: a middling size is 250. They are now smaller than formerly, being divided as fast as leases fall. There are houses in general to all, the land lets the better for them, owing to its being a tillage country. Mr. Nevill encourages his tenantry to build, by being at half the expence. A common farmer requires one 50 feet long, 16 wide, two stories high; a barn, 40 by 16; a stable, 40 by 16; a cow-house, 50 by 14; a pig-stye, hen-house, &c., all which would cost about £300, of stone, the house slated, and would be sufficient for 250 acres of land. The courses of crops are:

1. Fallow. 2. Wheat. 3. Oats. 4. Wheat. 5. Clover. 6. Clover. 1. Potatoes. 2. Barley. 3. Fallow. 4. Wheat. 5. Clover. 6. Clover. They sometimes sow wheat after potatoes; the crops are as great as after fallow; but the quality of the grain is not equal. Their fallow they plough first in winter; harrow in May, cross plough in ditto and in June; stretch it (that is, form the ridges) in August, making them of two bouts; harrow, and the seed furrow, in September; and reckon the best seed time the middle of that month. No dung in general used for it, but sometimes gravel. One barrel of seed to the acre; never weed the crop; the produce from five to twelve barrels, medium seven. Price of late years, 20s. a barrel. They thresh upon floors formed of lime, sand, and coal ashes, and are of opinion that they do not hurt the colour of the grain. At harvest they do not reap till it is quite ripe, bind directly, and form it into stacks in the field, which they leave out a fortnight. Plough the potatoe land once or twice for barley, sow a barrel an acre of 16 stone in April; medium price of late years from 7 to 128., average 10s. Of clover they sow 21 lb. per acre, generally half clover and half trefoile; do not sow it till the barley is up, bush harrowing it; and on wheat bull harrow it, that is, with harrows without teeth. Never mow it. For oats