The Express.
London, England, 1849-10-17 00:00:00

and nobody admitted he had gained. In
WI inked dame is nothing verrremarkali.e. Remu-
waits pekes are every where known to be inva-
riably tea years old at least. Pre,ent prices
awe ate remunerative. When cattle sold high,
ws hoard of notbirg but the monstrous
• ot feeding, and the poverty of the
me" that did not suffer them to boy. When
;rise fell, there was no longer anything to be mada
Ustaah ; and no man, who could do anything else
with his land or money, would waste hie time in
gang Nircerthelesa, we find even at this. the
third anniversary since famine fell upon the land,
▪ vast amount of all the substantial a neotsmry
items that there used to be—the main delakation be-
jwit in those which are the natural evidence of spare
time and spare money.
Subjoined are the returns of black cattle sold and
amid at the present and two preceding fairs :
11117—sold
Unsold

Total

7,648
046161 d
759
Unsol t

Total

,844
1840—gold
Unsold

Total

12.768

So far as supply offered and demand met, there is
certainly nothing in these figures to excite despond-
ency or alarm.
In the next great item—that of sheep—there is a
much pester falling off in quantity :
1847—Sheep mold 53 095
Unsold

Total

66,707
IS4S—q4d
Unsold

Total

60
1819 —Sold
1,190
Unsold

Total
It must not, however, be forgotten that in this ap-
parent proof of contracted agricultural industry
there is to be found at least one element of
solace to those who have hitherto regarded
with anxiety and apprehension the retrograde change
from tillage to pasture with which the country was
so loudly menaced. Many humane and credulous
people took reckless and threatening landlordism at
its word; and believed that tho dispossession of the
eottier tenantry, and the decimation of the labouring
classes by pestilence and destitution, would be fol-
lowed by the rapid and universal turning of the
western half of Ireland into a cheep walk. It would
seem, however, as if their own self-iaterest
had silently but effectually withheld the pre-
prietexy of these prolific regions from car-
rying precipitately into practice their grand
specific for permanently ridding themselves at once of
a peasantry and poor-rates. After all, there were not
more sheep, but fewer, brought this year to the great
market of the kingdom than in 1817 or 1818; and
we may halos infer that the wholesale depopulation
project has been for the present arrested, or te likely
to be so. We aro not about to analyse the secondary
mum of the phenomenon here : we only wish to
draw attention to the Net quantum ailed.
The raising of horned cattle, as most of our
readers are doubtless aware, does not to the came
extent imply observe of employment for the
labouring classes. In all districts where high farming
prevails, whether of Great Britain or of the continent,
house-f-eding is found to be much more remunerative
than th- primaeval system of open pasturage. Arad
though we cannot ho,:e to see the necessary rkill,
capital, and enterprise, suddenly applied in Connaught
to this mode of fatt,niug cattle, it is certain that
every day's improvement and experience tends to
hasten even there the time, when green crops and arti-
ficial grasses will supplant the indo:ent and semi-
barbarous plan which in other times universally pre-
vailed.
On the other hand it must be admitted that the
prices obtained for sheep were better in proportion
than those obtained for cattle at the recent fair, and
hence the curious feature in the statement of sales
above given, that while the gross number offered this
year at Ballinasloe was less than that of last year,
and that of last year was lees than that of the pre-
ceding, the actual number sold was larger
in 1848 than in 1847, r.nd in 1819 than
in 1848. There is some reason then to fear
lest a tendency should for the time be manifested to-
wards steep-feeding in preference to the .rearing of
black cattle. But in this as well as every other
species of production, the market may be overstocked,
and thus a check may coon be felt in falling prime
of mutton as well u of bread. There are other
considerations also in the existing condition
of Ireland which may well deter prudent men
from risking much in sheep. Moderate rents, more
certain tenure, and a just allowance to the occupying
tenant for all his improvements which enhance the
letting value of the holdi g, are the true means
whereby landlords may be once more assured of being
paid fair rents, and of seeing the surplus labour of
the country absorbed by that improved system of
tillage which in the end alone can pay.