Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1879-06-14
"FORTNIGHT IN IRELAND. u
NUMBER EIGHT.

provinces are concerned, and things have
sumed very different shape The potato rot,
| followed by the distressing famine, opened the
walton there prevalent, and set them at work
to apply some remedy. There has never been
any we'll established theory advanced for the
total failure of that staple crop, which con-
stitutes the bulk of the food consumed by the
poor peasants Many remedies have been
tried to arrest the plague, but without effect.
New methods of cultivation and all kinds of
manures have been tried in vain. The seed
has been changed many times even American
seed being used, but to-day the potato crop is
almost total failure. The stalks, or "tops"
as they are there called, grow up healthy, and
potato field looks as beautiful with its dark
green leaves and delicate purple blossoms, as
| remember ever to have seen, but there is a
disease at the root and the potato will not
keep, and they are used now principally for
hog feed The first remedy applied to reform
farming was to buy up the small leases and
consolidate them into large farms. A lease of
say twelve acres, was worth from one to two
hundred pounds for leases were made perpet-
ual The sum enabled the tenant to carry his
family to America or some of the colonies,
and for many years the immigration to our
shores was largely increased. The population
OF Ireland has within my memory been re
duced from seven and half to about FIVE
millions, and is still being reduced. The COR
6, IL,
who had means of improving them, and po
tatOes and oats were left out of their crops
except for necessary home use, and instead,
wheat and barley, rutabaga, beans and flax
became the crops, and cattle raising, cheese,
butter and poultry, for which market is al
ways found in England, became the principal
industries. American implements took the |
place of the old clumsy pillow and harrow,
the reaper and mower driving out the scythe !
and sickle, and machinery the hand loom
weaver. The old bleach-greens were ploughed |
up and chemicals used instead of sunlight for l
linen bleaching, but not with any advantage
to the linen. The rude stone cabins were
RACED, and when | looked for the cluster of
hill in front, and called by courtesy town,
| have found field of waving grain or vege
tables. A thousand landmarks were blOtted
out, causing feelings of melancholy, but |
knew that all this denoted improvement. In
some cases where | lett bare floors and UNI
plastered walls, l found comfortable dwellings
and neatly furnished rooms, and during ten
days which | spent in the rural districts, |
sat at as good tables and slept in as comfort
able rooms as | have ever met in any farming
districts in any country. Even the language
has changed. The broad, hard Scotch dialect
mas been softened down to purer English and
education is more general. There were but
very few women in my young days who could
write; that was accomplishment reserved
or the men, and | can recall many rude
owe letter have read for the girls around,
when | was yoang enough to be trusted with
uch secrets; but that is all changed, and | t
eceive now and then letter, written in neat
ngular characters, which in the days | write
#, would have been considered phenomenal.
But the athletic young men, and buxom girls,
o plenty in those days, are no longer there,
nd as in England and Scotland, the gather
ng in of the harvest is dependent in Ulster,
p Lainster and Connaught from, which
rowds of men and boys wander of every sum-
ler, to earn few pounds in the harvest fields. .
me afternoon mounted a fine mare which
1as at my service during my stay, and rode
0 the old manse where over forty years be
oce, in company with eleven other youths, I Fl
tuGied Latin and " tuptoed for some years.
he house stood then almost ruin. The
Ows of fine sycamores, ASH and frs, which
krted the lane, and buried the old fashioned
rick house in deep g cOntiguity of shade
ere all gone, and the house itself was kept <
y two old crones, one of whom | knew rs the
est dancer in the parish, daughter of Paddy q
AVIAN, the blind fiddler, who never played -
ut one tune, The black water boat" Of
purse | got ready access to the house, and ~
read my initials cut in the desk where | sat
hen boy; looked at the old faded maps
4 the wall, Just where they hung as I last e.
wv them in 1880 | peopled the little study
it'll the boys who occupied those desks; one
professor of Magee College, one an eminent
ergyman in the Orkney's, one member of
arliament, another an Edinburgh professor,
10 uhoea homes are hlpachino in India and