QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE, No. IV.*
To read this Journal is like turning up the sweet-smelling earth : it is wholesome and inspiring—redolent of hopeful labour, and pregnant with delights to come. Agriculture is always a respect- able if not an elevating occupation—it is a constant study of nature, and its object is to meet the most essential wants of mankind : but scientc agriculture is far more than this ; we can conceive no occupation more useful, more noble, more worthy of an intellectual man, more abundant in pleasing hopes and joys, more conducive to long life, family and social enjoyment. To depreciate the manu- facturer is absurd—he continues and carries further the farmer's labour ; yet may we prefer the occupation which serves as the foundation of all arts, and which is in more immediate connexion with Nature and her secret treasures. Thus all that concerns itself about the face of Nature,—planting, sowing, reaping, feeding, train- ing, cropping, breeding, and about the improvement of these pro- cesses,—carries us out again into the fresh air of morning—en- ables us to glance once more across the green turnips and the yel- low corn—brings the rustic labourer before us, the still village and the silent road, the lowing mileh-kine and their wholesome milkers, and, in short, confounds us again with the steady, healthy, hofiest, and sincere interests of the rural parish in a prosperous and hos- pitable district.
* Blackwood, Edinburgh; and Cadell, London.
There are several papers of considerable interest in this number of the Journal,—an able one on the shape of the plough; another
on COBBETT'S corn ; another, which attracted our attention, on the defective agriculture of Ireland. The evils which are at the root of Irish backwardness in this essential art are ably traced. It is not generally known, that in Ireland the tenant is expected to erect the necessary buildings on the farm : the necessary outlay generally consumes the farmer's capital, and he of course calculates his buildings just to last the length of his lease. No stipulation is made as to the rotation of crops or the application of manure : a tenant usually considers, that for the time he has his land, the more he can get out of it and the less he can put into it the better. If at the end of a lease the farm is in better condition than when origi- nally let, the rent is raised—raised even on account of the very buildings the tenant has erected out of his own money. Another cause of inferiority is found in the neglect of green tillage. The winter climate of Ireland is mild : there is always grass enough for the cattle to starve on, consequently none of the useful and searching crops of turnips or mangel wurzel are ever resorted to. Again, the Irish at home are excessively indisposed to labour : they require incessant watching, and are always ready to take ad- vantage of a holyday : with characteristic shortsightedness, they had rather go to work for another at eightpence a day, than stay at home to get two shillings by well-directed attention to their own land. The climate of Ireland is in their favour; the soil is rich ; and, what is a great deal, the mole is not known. But the Irish are idle. The following little scene from Mr. JOHNSON'S paper will amuse, while it lets us into the real state of things.
" I have often in my wanderings stepped into the house of some farmer, whose ground appeared shamefully neglected and almost waste : and as I
am a busy, meddling sort of personage in rural matters, I have looked about me and asked questions. There is a uniform courteousness and evident gratitude to any gentleman who evinces an interest in their con- cerns, which removes all appearance of officiousness or feeling of im- propriety, in speaking to them of their private affairs." " On entering with the usual salutation of God save all here,' and re- ceiving the invariable response of God save you, kind Sir,' I have found twc or three women and a man standing or sitting over a smoky fire : a
lot of dirty, little, healthy-looking children, Scotice ' grushie weans' play- ing in the middle of the earthen floor ; and possibly, in an inner apart-
ment with a boarded floor, where the principal bed stands, five or six young men, playing spoil five' with a horribly filthy pack of cards. On the fire simmers an iron caldron of dimensions so portentous that an Englishman would at once conclude that it was a private still of no ordi- nary calibre. There is, however, no thought of illicit distillation in the case : it is only the potato pot, which is thrice a day replenished to the brim ; and the wayfaring man and the stranger within his gates are as welcome to partake of the cottager's fare, ' in the name of God,' as is the wife of his bosom.
" To the query, Why are you not at work to-day ?' the answer, at least twenty days in the year, and then often at the most important and critical season too, will be It's a holyday, Sir.' In the month of February,
I have been told, ' It's early yet, Sir, and the ground is something wet still' " But why do not you open the drains, scour the ditches, grub up the weeds, mend the gaps I saw in your fence, and draw limestone on the land, and break it into gravel, for manure: for your horses are idle, as well as yourselves ?
"' Why then, it's true for your honour ; but you are a stranger in these parts, Sir, and doesn't know the rights of it. The poor man affoord to improve the land that-a-way. We haven't capital, Sir, that's the loss of this country, so it is : an' any how, sure I've only a twenty-one years lase, and nine years of it gone, an' if I was to make the land that's in it better itself, I'd only be rising the rint on myself.' But my good fellow, surely you will not sit down in sloth and poverty for a dozen of years, merely that your rent may not be raised at the end of that time ? " Troth, an' I'd wish to keep the bit of ground for the childer at the rint, any how, Sir."
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