three contiguous lots, with a confiderable preference over other bidders. When the tenants are fettled a year or eighteen months, all the rents fhould alfo be fold by public auction, and with fufficient notice, and the money fo brought back to the public might be again employed as before. I fhall now confider fuch parts of this fcheme as may appear at firft view objectionable. Four acres of what is thirty fhillings land to the farmer, may be thought too fmall a farm; I am affured by feveral gentlemen, who I think understand the country thoroughly, that it is fufficient. Some of the facts that I have ftated lead to that conclufion. If any perfon will take the trouble of enquiring the profits of gardening, how far from a great city the advantage of its market and manure might be extended by canals with moderate tolls; any one who will confider thefe things will find, that a much smaller quantity of ground than is generally fuppofed is fufficient to fupport a family comfortably. Many of the products of gardening can bear the expence of long fea carriage, and therefore bear coaft carriage, as onions which we import from Portugal, apples from America, potatoes we get at prefent by coaft carriage, and fo we might other garden roots of feveral kinds. If any confiderable estate was divided, as I propofe, a mutual market would be created, and as we know the poor purchase vegetables in town, we must fuppofe they would do fo in a clofe neighbourhood, at a more moderate price. But, But, to fhew that four acres of good ground fufficient, let us confider how it may be divided. Half an acre well dunged will produce enough of potatoes for a family, one-eighth will make a fufficient kitchen garden, one acre and three-fourths will fupport a cow, and one acre if fowed with clover and this used in the houfe. There remains two five-eighths together with pigs and poultry, to pay the rent and procure clothes. By keeping one cow, the fmall Farmer will be able to manure an acre; this it is well known he can do by means of a variety of managements which a large Farmer cannot attend to; the large Farmer can hardly reckon on ma⚫ nuring more than twenty perch for each cow. Mr. Townsend obferves, that there is a striking difference between the Cottagers who have a garden adjoining to their houses, and those who have no garden the former are generally fober, induftrious and healthy, whilst the latter are too often drunken; lazy, vicious and difeafed. There was an act paffed in the reign of Elizabeth, which required that four acres fhould be attached to every cottage: this law might have been modified to advantage, but its total repeal was probably one of the reasons why the population of England has not encreased. To fhew the productivenefs to which our foil might be brought, I fhall only mention a few facts, pot having leifure at present to make the neceffary enquiries: I am well affured, that about feven miles from Dublin, one-eighth of an acre gave a clear profit, above rent, labour, feed, &c. of twenty-five pounds, for early early potatoes, and afterwards a crop of turnips. Meffrs. Roe and Duff have had a crop of potatoes laft year of a valuable kind for feed, which, on a moderate computation, muft yield them a profit at the rate of two hundred pounds per acre, I have heard of two hundred barrels an acre as not a very uncommon produce, which, if good potatoes, and near town, must be at least fifty pounds per acre profit. It is mentioned in the agricultural report of Lancafhire, that near Liverpool three crops of potatoes are procured off the fame ground in the year. I allow the profit of early potatoes is not one to be reckoned on in farming, because it is a luxury, but it is an instance to fhew what may be done by a sys tem, that at once encreases the productiveness of the ground, and the market for the product. The profit on onions is an example of what a fmall quan. tity of ground may be made to produce: I have heard of feveral inftances of crops, which, if near town, might have given fifty or fixty pounds per acre profit; but I had one inftance, well authenticated, of a gardener near town clearing one hundred and five pounds from an acre of onions: another, of a perfon in the county of Rofcommon clearing forty pounds from a quarter of an acre, For my own part, I imagine that the divifion of coarse ground would anfwer ftill better than that of good ground: a great deal in each cafe would depend on having a confiderable number of lots together one great advantage in preserving a pretty clofe equality of the farms, and having many in the D fame fame neighbourhood is, that the common people, though often guilty of depredations on their richer neighbours, feldom fteal from each other; and if they had none but their equals to fteal from, mutual advantage would teach them honefty. When once this was established, the produce of their lands would be vastly encreafed; they might have kitchen gardens, fmall fruit, and standard fruit trees, fupplying at once fruit and fhelter. Six months after the land was divided, the value of the houfes built on it would encrease the purchase value of the land half a guinea an acre: fettlers coming from different parts of the country, poffeffed of different methods, would improve each other rapidly, and be more open to admit improvements suggested by others. Thofe however who wished to teach them, fhould first learn from them: fhould be familiar with their methods, and the grounds of them, before they propofed improvements. Yet there are many points in which improvements should be taught them, at once by writing and examples: among thefe are the fucceffion of crops; the management of dung-pits, moft confiftent with health and cleanlinefs; the manner of building houses for warmth, drynefs and health; the management of fire; the means of procuring cheap difhes of animal food; Elkington's method of draining, and the method of feeding cows by foiling. The advantage of very small farms, in reclaiming ground, is remarkably fhewn in the account of the dividing of the Common of Knaresborough, which confifted confifted of thirty thousand acres it was divided into lots proportioned to the right of commonage which different perfons enjoyed, and therefore very various in fize; it was uniformly found that the fmall farms were firft improved. Another kind of land fit for this divifion is moor land, provided lime could be found in its neighbourhood; if fuch land was fixed on, the tenants should be allowed by exprefs claufes in their leafes to burn it, and fhould be fupplied with lime at a ftated price. By burning and liming, this land will produce good potatoes the firft year, but without lime the potatoes are apt to be black at the heart: fuch ground will also answer well for cabbages or turnips, but not for any kind of corn except rye. There is a great quantity of moor land in this kingdom, and none more unprofitable: lime is effential to reclaiming it; few countries afford more lime than Ireland; it is fometimes neglected because impure, although containing a fufficient proportion of calcareous matter to conftitute a valuable manure it is often, I believe, neglected from being too deep under ground, whereas in England it is worked by mining, as coal is, of which there is an account in Young's Annals of Agriculture, vol. 22, page 266. Another objectionable part of my project may be the felling to the highest bidder; but this feems to be neceffary, from the great difficulty there would be in finding men fufficiently impartial, to diftribute: land under the market price to the fitteft perfons; and the objection is leffened, though not removed, by |