a vast reach of it, like a magnificent river, opens as you rise the hill. Afterwards I passed under the principal mountain, which rises abruptly from the lake into the boldest outline imaginable; the water there is very beautiful, filling up the steep vale formed by this and the opposite hills. Reached Mullingar. It was one of the fair days. I saw many cows and beasts, and more horses, with some wool: the cattle were of the same breed that I had generally seen in coming through the country. July 5th, left Mullingar, which is a dirty ugly town, and taking the road to Tullamore,' stopped at Lord Belvidere's, with which place I was as much struck as with any I had ever seen. The house is perched on the crown of a very beautiful little hill, half surrounded with others, variegated and melting into one another. It is one of the most singular places that is anywhere to be seen, and spreading to the eye a beautiful lawn of undulating ground margined with wood. Single trees are scattered in some places, and clumps in others; the general effect so pleasing, that were there nothing further, the place would be beautiful, but the canvas is admirably filled. Lake Ennel, many miles in length, and two or three broad, flows beneath the windows. It is spotted with islets, a promontory of rock fringed with trees shoots into it, and the whole is bounded by distant hills. Greater and more magnificent scenes are often met with, but no where a more beautiful or a more singular one. From Mullingar to Tullespace, I found rents in general at 20s. an acre, with much relet at 30s. yet all the crops, except bere, were very bad, and full of weeds. About the latter named place, the farms are generally from 100 to 300 acres, and their course, 1. Fallow. 2. Bere. 3. Oats. 4. Oats. 5. Oats. Great quantities of potatoes all the way, crops from 40 to 80 barrels. The road before it comes to Tullamore leads through a part of the bog of Allen, which seems here extensive, and would make a noble tract of meadow. The way the road was made over it was simply to cut a drain on each side, 2 King's Co. and then lay on gravel, which, as fast as it was laid and spread, bore the cars: along the edges is fine white clover. Part of Tullamore is well built. I passed through it to Captain Johnston's at Charleville,' to whom I am indebted for the following account of the husbandry of the neighbourhood. Farms around Tullamore are commonly 100 to 300 acres, but some smaller, and some of 5 or 600. The soil is generally a dry sound gravelly loam, lets from 128. to 18s. average 16s. five miles every way around. Average of land let in the whole country 15s. exclusive of bog. He thinks that one-seventh of the county is bog or mountain; but the latter pays from 18. 6d. to 38. The course of crops: 1. Oats on lay, sow one barrel and a half, get 10 to 15. 2. Fallow. 3. Wheat, sow three-fourths to 1 barrel, get 4 to 7 barrels. 4. Oats. 1. Oats. 2. Fallow. 3. Wheat. 4. Oats. 5. Pease. 1. Potatoes on grass with dung, or burn-bating. 2. Bere, sow three-fourths of a barrel, get 12 to 20 barrels. 3. Wheat. 4. Oats. 5. Fallow. Some 1. pare, an burn for turneps. 2. Potatoes at £6 an acre rent. 3. Bere. 4. Wheat. 5. Oats. 6. Fallow. They are exceedingly late in sowing, not finishing their wheat and bere till after Christmas. They sow rape on low grounds by the edge of bogs, upon paring and burning for seed; they get This name is borne by two country seats in Ireland-this one near Tullamore and the other near Bray-as well as by the town in co. Cork, which was so named by the first Earl of Orrery in honour of Charles II. It was previously called Rathgoggan. 12 to 15 barrels an acre, worth from 128. to 20s. a barrel. They sow it on the ground without covering after ploughing, and the rougher the land the better. Sow rye after it, and then oats, getting good crops; and lay it down with grass seeds from lofts, or ray grass, or clover and trefoile. For turneps on fallow, plough sometimes thrice, oftener twice, lay on no manure for them, nor hoe them, get very bad crops. If pare and burn they plough twice; but a penalty is laid of £5 an acre for doing it. They eat them with sheep both drawn and on the land. Very little clover sown. Flax is sown very generally, from patches up to three or four acres, they do the whole of it themselves, spinning and weaving. About Good Friday is the time of sowing; but later sown is bad. The sky farmers, (and often the better sort) that is the petty ones, let potato ground for it, at £6 an acre to cottars. Great quantities of potatoes in the trenching way, and all the dung is used for them. A common way is, for the farmers to let them have land for nothing, upon condition of their dunging it, which all do that have not land of their own: if not, they pay from £4 to £6 dunged, or turnep land fed with sheep, which they prefer, the potatoes being drier and better. The apple potatoe is most esteemed, because they are great bearers, last through the summer, and have been kept two years. Not much lime used, having been tried, but has not answered; limestone gravel on lay to be broken up, has a very great effect. The expence 10s. or 15s. The grass is chiefly applied to heifers, or store bullocks; the first sold in small parcels at home, the latter at Ballynasloe' or Bannagher. They buy them in at a year or two years old; the first 30s. to 50s. the latter from 558. to 578. Keep them a year and four or five months, or only a year: in a year they will make, by the first, 258. to 30s. and from 30s. to 40s. by the others. Wherever the land is good enough, a few cows bought in for fattening, in May, at £1 15s. to £5 and sold with 40s. a head profit. The poor people all rear calves. Many sheep bred; the best farmers breed and sell them fat in three years old, wethers at Michaelmas, from 188. to 24s. if in spring, from 248. to 448. Clip from 5 to 7 lb. of wool. Ballinasloe, a market-town in the border of cos. Roscommon and Galway, has still an important cattle-fair lasting five days in October. Banagher, King's Co. The tillage is done by oxen, four in a plough, not half an acre a day, the sky farmers sometimes will put one horse and a cow in. Oxen are reckoned best. They cut no chaff, but winnow in the field. Hire of a boy, horse and car 18. 1d. The sky farmer will take 40 or 50 acres, with 3 or 4 cows and a horse or two, and £5 58. in their pockets. Tythes are compounded, 58. for winter corn, 3s. for spring corn, 25s. 1000 sheep. Mowing ground, 58. Land sells for 20 years purchase, rack rent has fallen two years purchase in seven years, and the rent has fallen from 3s. to 58. in the same time. No tea. County cess 6d. Very few middle men left. Cottages with half an acre, let for 20s. with two acres, which is common, 40s. No emigrations. Religion, lower classes all Roman. Not one cottar in six has a cow about towns; but in the country, about half of them have. Most of them have a pig, and much poultry. They are not more thieving than for a few turnips and cabbages for their own use, nor that to any excess. Many of the poor have reclaimed much bog, the premiums of the Dublin Society have induced them to do it: which are now 50s. an acre: by gradual draining, either from cutting turf, or making bounds, or from drainings purposely done, they get to peat, and burn it 4 to 6 inches deep, at 20s. an acre, and sow bere, rye, or potatoes; the bere does best, and next year another crop of corn; and then another burning, and 2 more crops, the potatoes are wet, but will do for seed, and they will escape the frost in a bog, when they are killed in the high lands. They pay nothing for the bog, having land adjoining. They lay the bits down to grass, sowing seeds, but the crop is generally very thin and poor, and after a year or two, burn it again; sometimes put out a little dung or gravel on the grass, and plant it with potatoes. Some have put potatoes in upon a red bog, with no other preparation than laying a poor, sharp, sandy gravel on it, and got tolerable crops. Mr. Johnston has cultivated cabbages for several years. In 1772 he had one acre, in 1773, 24, and since that, between 1 and 2 acres every year. The great Scotch sort which he sows in February, and plants out in 4 feet rows, and 18 inches, from plant to plant, the beginning of June. If the plants are not in the ground then, the crop will not be good. Ploughs for them Horse-hoes twice or twice, and dungs richly in the furrows. thrice, and hand-weeds them; they come from 5 to 12lb., but have always began to burst in September. Has used them for fattening sheep, that would not fatten on grass; also for bullocks, which throve perfectly well, likewise the leaves (with great care in picking) to milch cows, but the butter tasted. Finds that the principal use of them is for bringing on cattle that will not finish at grass, and to be used all before Christmas. Barley that has been sown upon cabbage land which succeeded potatoes, a vast crop, 24 barrels an acre. Turneps Mr. Johnston has had for these ten years, from 1 to 4 acres, and has always applied them to fattening sheep, for which purpose he finds them excellent; and best to feed in the field, because fast in the ground for the sheep to bite at, provided there is some grass for them to lie on. Has deviated from the common late sowing of wheat, putting his in the beginning of September, and finds his harvest so much earlier, that his is in the haggard (reek-yard) when others are cutting. His tillage he performs with only 2 horses. Mr. Johnston is a great friend to the Irish cars: He carries 10 to 12 cwt. of turf, 3 statute kishes of hard stone turf, each horse 10 turns a day, or 20 miles, and all done on grass alone. CHAPTER IV. Lord Shelburne's Norfolk bailiff.-Dean Coote.-The proposed union with Great Britain.-Athy.-Brownshill.-Mount Juliet, Lord Carrick's seat on the Nore.-Kilfaine.-Farming in partnership.-Sir W. Fownes at Woodstock.-Scenery.-The River Barrow at Ross.-The Whiteboys. ULY 6th went to Rathan,' where Lord Shelburne has placed a Norfolk bailiff, Mr. Vancover, for the management of a farm he took into his own hands, who brought with him a plowman, plough, harrow and tackle. The design does honour to the nobleman who formed it; and Mr. Vancover is not likely to disappoint him; he is a 1 Rahan, King's Co. F |