that of the same parcel of ground, they have always one third under winter grain, another under spring grain, and the other third under fallows. They set apart a small parcel of their worst grounds for grazing their milch and plough cattle, and all the rest is, from year to year, without any intermission, treated in the above manner. No length of time exhausts the vigour of their ground. They pay generally speaking, twenty shillings an acre for it, good and bad, and therefore cannot afford to let it be idle, and take crops of grass from it, in lieu of wheat and barley.

You will be pleased to observe, sir, that all the labour of men and horses is, by the above calculation, supposed to be hired in at the dearest rates; whereas a husbandman, who can maintain servants and horses of his own, will save a good deal in that article. Besides, if the ploughing were performed with bullocks, the whole labour of horses would be clearly saved, because the bullocks, after ploughing for two or three years, will sell for more than their keeping came to.

Upon the whole, as the above calculation is the result of much considering and debating among persons extremely well skilled in both pasturage and tillage, whom I consulted with on this occasion, I am confident it is prepared to stand the severest examination, provided it be a candid one. However, I do not desire you should depend on me alone in this; lay my computation before skilful persons, and desire them candidly to give you their opinion of it. Such persons will not disdain to descend to the mean particulars, which I have been obliged to dwell on; because they know the merits of this, as well as of all other points, depend on, and must be traced to their first simple principles, which are no other than the expenses and gains of the farmer.

It is farther worth observing, that as vast quantities of the best ground in the kingdom, and a good deal of yours, pay no tithe of grain, and as in many places grass and hay are actually tithed, and if some old laws could be put in force, would be tithed every where, so the charge in my computation against the farmer for tithes, ought in many places to be relaxed in respect to him and his landlord, and those of the hay and grass, or at least, the moduses for

milches, hay, &c. ought to be charged against the grazier. Though this is a very material consideration in favour of tillage, yet I have left it, and many other such advantages, out of my comparison, partly because they could not be easily computed, and partly because I had advantages enough without them.

It is commonly objected to tillage that abundance of grain is lost, one year with another, by mildews, winds, lodging, the cutworm, vermin, &c. But more stress is laid on this objection than reason will allow of. Even in the north, where the weather is more severe, where they have more rain and wind, and where the harvest, coming in later, is thrown into a more uncertain season, the careful husbandman, who cultivates a good piece of ground, can communibus annis produce such crops as are mentioned above. In your country, sir, the middle grounds having more strength in them than the best in the north, will not only produce larger crops, but will give them a strength more sufficient to resist the injuries of the weather. Besides, as you lie two degrees nearer to the sun, and enjoy more early and certain seasons, there is far less reason in your case for stumbling at such objections. As, however, there is a loss sustained this way, which merits consideration, I am sure so does that which the dealer in cattle suffers by rots, murrains, and numberless other disorders incident to all kinds of cattle. In bad hay years (that is, generally once in four or five years) the expense of wintering cattle is greatly advanced. These losses may very well balance those of tillage.

Unless about considerable towns, your lands are set mostly under ten shillings an acre. Even in the Golden Vale, they did not set for so much, till of late. Yet as your grounds are near twice as good as those in Meath and Louth, so they ought to set for twice as much. Those in Meath setting for twenty, yours ought to set for forty, and yet, to your mortification, they set but for ten, that is, for little more than a fourth part of their value.

The lands in the north are no way comparable to those in Meath, and much less still to yours. Notwithstanding this they generally set higher than yours.

No doubt but the linen trade, and other manufactures

contribute greatly to this. But then tillage is the source of all; for manufactures follow tillage, have always done so, and can never take place effectually where bread corn is not provided at cheap and easy rates.

Forty acres of very indifferent ground, in the northern end of the kingdom, maintain a family in plenty, and pay the landlord fourteen, fifteen, or perhaps twenty pounds yearly in rent; whereas in the southern end of the kingdom, where the soil is infinitely better, the same extent of ground feeds not a human creature; and yields its owner scarcely one-third of its value. This, I think, sir, is a most shameful comparison.

But that which may be made between the lower inhabitants of the north and south, to whose different dispositions, the wide difference in the value of lands is owing, is I think, still more odious.

I have seen, in the north of Ireland, a sturdy fellow, of British descent, who wore good clothes, rode a good horse to church and market, dwelt in a warm stone house, maintained a wife and four or five children, or rather made them help to maintain him; and all out of a little farm of thirty or forty acres of sorry ground, at a very high rent. Nay, I have seen the same person portion off his children, and settle them, each in as good a way as himself. But then I own neither he nor his family eat the bread of idleness. They lived well, and they wrought for it. I have seen them burning lime or clay, drawing dung, marl, or sand, gathering the dirt off the highways, raking the slutch out of ditches, and carrying the soil up, from deep bottoms, to bare and shallow hills, from whence it had been washed, as if they intended to repair their little portion of the world, and restore the very decays of nature.

Turn your eyes now, sir, from these useful and worthy creatures, upon a poor cabin built of sods, sorely decayed in walls and roof, with half a dozen wretches within it, who are so far from being able to repair it, that if a single crown were sufficient to keep it from crushing them into the earth, they could not command it. They are clothed with rags, and half eaten up with vermin; and being too lazy and as often too proud to work, are nevertheless not ashamed to steal. Your bullocks indeed look well, but these slaves

and attendants of theirs wear the livery of such a service, and look as if they had brutes indeed for their masters.

Pray, now, whether would you rather receive three thousand pounds a year from the former, or take two thousand that came by the assistance of the latter? Whether would you choose, a third more from a country well peopled with such stout, and able-bodied men, who would enrich you in peace, and defend you in war, or a third less, from a sort of desert grazed by a race of sheep, bullocks, and beggars, the latter of whom would infallibly cut your throat, and burn your house, were they encouraged to it by the least disturbance in the country?

We hear it often objected that many persons have made considerable fortunes by grazing, but none by tillage; and that those gentlemen who have attempted tillage in very large farms, in hopes of enriching themselves that way, have been disappointed.

This whole objection, sir, I grant; but it concludes nothing against tillage in the way I have been recommending; nor has it any thing to do with gentlemen of estates, whose fortunes are already made.

Those who take large stock-farms from you, at a very moderate rent, and hold the like in other estates near you, may possibly find a more certain profit in grazing those grounds with dry cattle, which may be attended by two or three herds, than by setting them in very small parcels to idle and unskilful cotters, who will break in arrears, and leave the houses out of repair, and the land out of heart. In the latter case they are to share in the profits of a very bungling sort of tillage, with perhaps a hundred families, but in the former, though the profits be less, they have them all to themselves. By this means, I own, the lessees I am speaking of may grow rich; but be assured it is at the expense of their landlords, who might by tillage raise their rents a third, I might justly say, in many cases one half, and at the same time afford a comfortable support to crowds of human creatures, who are now lost to their country by idleness, banishment, or death. The profits of pasturage, though small, arising from a great extent of land, rated very low, may enrich a drover. But pray what is that to you, sir, who might have a great deal more for your land?

It is your business, as I take it, to consider how you may better your estate, not how this poor grazier, or that needy butcher may raise a fortune off your lands. As you are now about to set a large parcel of your lands, and have done me the honour to consult with me on the occasion, I would advise you to set them in such a manner, as to have industrious men, rather than unprofitable cattle, to occupy your ground, and to suffer no overgrown lessee to come between you and those who work that ground, and intercept the greater part of the profit. There is no greater enemy to the landed gentlemen, than your takers of great leases, who either huckster out those lands they hold at a low rent, to needy wretches who give them whatever they ask, or else graze them; and so in both cases, the ground being occupied by beggars or black cattle, is for ever unimproved. The landlord gets but a sorry rent, and his estate is a perfect desert. The extravagance of our gentlemen is the original cause of this. They want money; so they must either sell, or which is little better, fine down their lands to a perfect quit-rent. By this means their estates are almost lost to their families. Little more than the name is left; and their lands which, by another management, might have paid their debts, given them more in five or six years, than their fines came to, and been doubled to them and their heirs for ever, are swallowed up, either by drovers, who put cattle on them, or by retailers of land, who people them with thieves and beggars.

In a pamphlet published some years ago, in which there are many things on the subject of tillage, that deserve your consideration, there is one gross mistake, which you and every landed gentleman should beware of being misled by. We are there told that, in the respect to tillage and pasturage, the public interest of the nation, and the private interest are against each other, that though tillage be highly profitable to the public, pasturage is more so to private persons; and that therefore the legislature ought to add such advantages on the side of tillage, as might raise its profit above those of pasturage, to private persons. The calculations I have sent you, demonstrate the very reverse in respect to private gain. They shew that the landlord and the husbandman would have between them three and a