The Sun.
London, England, 1861-09-12 00:00:00

THE SUN LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 12. 1861.

by Lord Cornwallis upon your gallant corps—that they
furnished a conspicuous proof that discipline and valour in
soldiers, when directed by zeal and capacity in office
rs, are
irresistible."

mountains of Killarney, many sheep graze the fine
herbage which grows even on the most precipitous
and lofty peaks of those highest altitudes in Ire-
land. The breed is somewhat larger size than the
Wicklow, but wild and indisposed to fatten, though
when fit for the butcher, prized for its delicate mut-
ton and for the large proportion of loose fat in the
carcass.

Kerry labourers are badly off. Winter wages for
men are commonly only 6d. a-day, and many men
work during that season for diet only, while their
families go into the Killarney, Tralee, and other
Unions." But in many districts better pay prevails.
Mr. Herbert's labourers at Muckross have Bs. a-
week the year round, with a rent-free cottage of
three ground floor rooms—with unplastered inside
walls to be sure, but palaces in comparison with
many of the country cabins in which human beings
are condemned to be born, to fare hardly, and to die
with every comfort unknown. These better-paid
hands live better, dress better, and are better than
men stinted on lower wages; and their case is a
proof that poor half-starved Paddy will not inva-
riably spend an extra shilling in potheen, as his
calumniators sometimes tell us. Lord Kenmare, on
his large property, furnishes labourers with plots
of ground for keeping cows, not under the control
of the farmers employing them ; and the distress
prevalent in Kerry is, therefore, chequered by
many cases of tolerably easy livelihood, obtained by
industrious men. In Killarney itself, it is a fact
that the poor are specially dainty about the quality
of their bread-loaf.

The railway from Killarney to Mallow passes
along a valley of much stony and more wet and
boggy land—a district of bad rushy grass, weedy
potatoes, stunted half-ripe oats, and some wheat
and barley ; the largest portion of the corn not yet
cut, and much hay not yet mown. It is a very late
season, owing to the prolonged rains ; but on the
higher and drier lands the grain is, most of it, carted.
Making our way into Limerick county, we find the
best crops of corn and hay we have yet seen in Ire-
land, divided into fair-sized fields by many real
hedgerows instead of the ragged furze banks.
Several large proprietors own a large share of the
county, but farms are generally small. There are a
few holdings of 8 to 15 statute acres, many of 15
to 25 acres; very few, but still some, of 400 or 500
acres; the average of the central part of the county
being about 50 to 65 acres. The Earl of Dunraven's
property about Adare Castle is all held by yearly
tenants, with the exception of a few farms held
under old leases; but among the smaller proprie-
tors long leases, with fines for entry, are still in
vogue, and much of the land which has passed into
more divided ownership through the agency of the
Encumbered Estates Court is let on 21 years'
leases. No tenant-right exists here as a principle,
_ _

though in some instances money may be paid to
outgoing tenants; as a rule, six months' notice to
quit is given, without any compensation. It
is a usual thing, however, for sons and heirs to
succeed to vacant holdings. The custom of " gale"
rent is very advantageous to a tenant, who has no
rent to pay for 12 months after entry, and then
only a half-year's rent, so that he has always one
half-year's payment in hand. Tenants thrive very
variously under different landlords, and the system
of interposing more than one manager of an estate
between the owner and his tenantry exists in many
cases, ,with considerable liability to abuse. An
agent collects rents at his town office for several
proprietors, having " drivers" or "rent-warners" to
look after the tenants ; or a company at Dublin will
collect rents in Limerick county, appointing a resi-
dent agent on any large estate, who has "drivers"
or "agriculturists" under him. On one large pro-
perty we hear that this causes no disadvantage to
the tenants, who are doing well under a rent-roll
lately subjected to reduction. But still it cannot
be a wise principle to widen the distance between
owners and tenants, and render new tenants liable
to selection for other reasons than their ability to
treat a farm in a business-like manner. Of course,
tenantry on different properties experience various
degrees of consideration. One large proprietor in
Limerick lately had his estate re-valued, raising the
rental £3,000 or £4,000 a year; but last year it was
deemed politic to forgive the tenants the increase,
and the present is such a bad season that there will
most probably be a difficulty in collecting it. An-
other landowner in the same county also employed
' a valuator, who promised a large increase of rent-

roll; but the agent was at once directed to lower I
rents wherever high, and to give all the tenants
leases. The tithe here, as in other places, is paid
by the landlord; the tenant pays one-half the poor-
rate (which is commonly ls. in the pound), and the
county cess, here about 2s. per acre.
The limestone land generally in tillage lets at an
average of 20s. to 30s. an acre, and if with a portion
of good permanent grass in connection, up to 38s. or
40s. Along the banks of the Shannon for some
miles below Limerick city is a reach of extraordi-
narily rich meadow, called " carcass," or marsh
land, alluvial, and securely embanked from the
spring tide 3 which would otherwise overflow the
surface. These grounds, never flooded and never
manured, are mown for hay every year, commonly
giving 32 tons to the statute acre, while as pasture
they are held in the highest esteem for horses.
Farmers without grass land, who grow no clover,
hire carcass land at £3 to £3 10s. an acre for the
summer,—for the sake of the hay. South-west of
Limerick to Rathkeale is some good grass land ; but
most of the country is in tillage, and two classes of
farming are seen. On the better system, swedes and
a little mangold are grown, one•fourth of the "green
crop" being potatoes, which were never more dis-
eased than they are this year. After these, wheat,
generally ploughed in with an exceedingly shallow
furrow, the best farmers having Suffolk drills, which
give a much better crop. No corn crops are hand-
hoed, the only chance of overmastering the rapid
growth of weeds in this humid climate being to sow
thiok4 in order to smother them, the usual seeding
of wheat being 10 or 12 stone per acre. Wheat does
well in a la:irourable season ; but too frequently a
sudden heat after prolonged rains shrivels up the
grain, mildew being very prevalent. The present
year ,will give a very deficient yield, but a good
average is 125 stone per acre, weighing 601 b. per
bushel, occasionally up to 631 b. per bushel. The
wheat is all carried to the rickyard, instead of being
made into diminutive stacks in the fields. After
the wheat comes clover, mown for hay ; then oats,
producing 155 stone, sometimes 180 or 220 stone
per acre. Some farmers let the clover remain two
years ; others take oats or barley in place of the
clover, which thus comes the fourth instead of the
third year, this being practised where plenty of arti-
ficial manures are used for the green crop. Oats
and barley are both average crops this year, and,
judging by the eye, about half already cut. The
inferior and generally smaller farming is a course of
potatoes, wheat, and then oats, sometimes the shed
oats of the last crops allowed to grow up for
another crop ; but the potatoe disease is doing much
to abolish this wretchedly fiogging management. All
the larger occupiers do, or are beginning to, grow
turnips and clover ; they plough six inches deep
with a pair of horses, trust to harrowing to draw out
root-weeds, using no broadshare soarifiers ; but the
most advanced husbandmen have Tennant's grubber.
Manure is not well made, no oilcake given to cattle
to enrich it, though a few of the best farmers feed
their animals on corn, and the lesser farmers get
their straw trodden into manure sometimes in sheds
and occasionally on the roads, the straw being qua-
lified by hay off the meadows.
The largest farmers are dairymen, some having
no tillage land at all ; 30, 40, or 50 Irish cows
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them in their
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a cow-house, and perhaps also a cart-shed. In fact,
the grass farms are often large holdings, with
scarcely any buildings at all. Lord Dunraven is a
present erecting good farm aces with money ad-

vanced by the Board of Works ; his Lordship's
estate has also been largely under-drained with pipes
or stones, partly executed by the tenants, who were
paid so much a perch for the work, and partly by
the present earl's loan from the Board of Works, a
re-valuation of the estate having been made after
drainage was done.
There is little sheep-grazing in the county of
Limerick, sheep being supposed to pick out the liner
grasses away from the cows ; but many dairymen
buy a few lambs from small farmers who keep, per-
haps, a couple of ewes; the lambs are grazed along
with the cows, and sold in spring as iamb-hogs at
50s. a head. Messrs. Christy, of Fort Union, near
Adare, whose shorthorn herd is so well known, buy
lambs in May—coarse Leicesters, or the country
sheep improved with Leicester blood, wash them
to free the wool from the grit and dirt of the fairs,
after a while dip with Bigg's composition, and
again in the autumn, and their last clip of hog
was sold for 275. a stone of 161 b. But it is too
rainy a country for sheep, which here suffer much
from the rot, so that few sheep, and not one large
breeding flock, can be found.
Mr. Christy, senior, sold off his herd a few years
ago, but the sons are maintaining the same stock
of high-class animals, breeding in connexion with
dairying on a mixture of tillage and grass land
which is not adapted for making animals into beef.
There is certainly very superior farming; all the
cattle are housed in winter, they sell none as stores,
consume much home-grown corn, and use bones
largely, having established a bone-mill twenty-five
years ago. They have a Garrett's finishing steam
threshing machine,. which is let out to neighbours,
and others of Clayton and of Tuxford are also in the
county; but the complete dressing of the grain
appears useless where millers give no higher price
for clean than for merely chaffed corn. This is
sold in the bulk when taken to market, and all
sales are for ready money, with no abatement for
delivery or discount.
We were unable to visit Lord I)unraven's farms,
to inspect the herd of shorthorns of Captain Ball,
or to see several fine specimens of good husbandry
by tenants in the neighourhood, who are descend-
ants of Protestant Germans settled here at the
period of the Reformation.