Now, if I had before me the quantity of our other provifion exports, of beef, pork, butter, tallow, corn, and the quantity of corn confumed in diftilleries, I could compute on the fame principles how many men might be fupported by the land employed in these trades, and this without diminifhing our exports; for it is not impoffible to conceive, that the provifions might be confumed at home, and their value exported in manufactures. I do not mean thefe obfervations as objections to the provifion trade. I am convinced that every one ought to be allowed, as much as poffible, to employ his own capital and induftry in the beft mode he can devife; but I mention them, because they may affist any perfon in forming an idea of what the country is capable.

How a country with fuch capabilities is apparently labouring under exceffive population, is now to be confidered. The land in Ireland is occupied by four defcriptions of men, refident Gentry, Middlemen, Farmers, and Cottiers. The refident Gentry have more land in their hands than they have attention to manage to the greatest profit, but they form fo neceffary a link in fociety, that the fmall wafte they occafion need not be spoken of. The Middleman is the general theme of invective with all Englishmen who write on the agricultural fyftem of Ireland: he is made neceffary by the indolence of the landlord, who will not be at the trouble of judging for himself of the character and refponfibility of his tenants, nor of keeping many fmall accounts: he

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is a molt expenfive agent, as his profit generally amounts to feven fhillings in the pound: he may be of ufe in one inftance, when the landlord refides in England; he in fome degree fupplies his place, and faves feven fhillings-in the pound to the country.

The Farmers have generally more land than they have capital adequate to employ. In fome parts of the country, as in the county of Waterford, the Farmer wanting capital to stock his farm, gets a certain number of cows from his landlord, and pays in proportion, he is bound to keep up the ftock, this prevents him as effectually from tilling as any reftrictive clauses, and expofes him to the danger of ruin from a severe winter, or disease among the cattle: he becomes little better than a herd, and I have known farmers pay two hundred pounds per annum, who feemed little better off than the Cottier. Thofe who till, if they have above fifty acres do it to great difadvantage, they cannot produce a proportional quantity of manure with the small farmer, they must draw out their manure to a much greater diftance, their labourers do not work with the fpirit a man does for himself, nor is every little advantage taken, they cannot afford to purchase cattle to graze their ftubble, ditches, and aftergrafs,

The queftion of the beft fize of farms has engaged the English agriculturists for fome time, but from the agricultural reports it is eafy to perceive, that opinions are changing quickly in respect to fmall farms; and it is now acknowledged, that the Cottagers ought to have land, the advantages

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of which are well pointed out in the report, I think, of Oxfordshire. The fmalleft fize contended for as the beft fize of a farm in England is too large for the largeft in Ireland, but when due allowance is made for the great natural value of the ground in Ireland, for the greater density of lation, and for the more eafy fupport of the people on potatoes than on butchers' meat, the reafon of the difference will be felt.

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Mr. Middleton in his agricultural report of Middlefex computes, that each individual of South Britain on an average confumes, in eating and drinking alone, the produce of three acres, and an eighth; but I believe this is on the fuppofition that all the provifions of England are raised in England; but as we well know that a great quantity of their annimal and vegetable food is imported from Ireland, the quantum of land, whofe produce is confumed by each individual in England, ought to be encreased. In Ireland we know many live on potatoes and water, thofe that do so confume only the produce of onetwelfth or one-eighteenth of an acre. So that an Englishman (allowing for the difference of the acres) on an average eats and drinks the produce of as much land, as twenty-five or thirty-two Irish Cottiers.

These conftitute the loweft clafs of occupiers of land, and are really a miferable people in most parts of the country. Thefe people hold houfes and fmall portions of land on condition of a certain quantity of labour. Their conditions are various.

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Let us confider the fituation of one, neither the beft nor worst suppose a man with a family holds a house, whose building coft four guineas, at one guinea a year, and an acre and half of land, for which the farmer pays forty-five fhillings, at three guineas more; then he will pay that at fix-pence a day one hundred and eighty-two days are thus foreftalled, and if fifty-two Sundays, all the Holydays, and the proportion of wet and frosty days are added, you will find he has very little of the year left to himself. His land he muft till between four and fix in the morning, and between eight and ten at night, and on the broken and wet days: at thefe times he muft alfo collect manure, for want of which his acre and half, which might be thrice as much as would fupply his family with potatoes, will scarcely do it; befides, he will be late in putting in his potatoes, for at the best season his landlord cannot fpare him a moment. From the remainder of his land and the remainder of his time he is to find clothes and other neceffaries: he often pays five fhillings a perch for turf bank, and begs a horfe to draw the turf home on Sunday: and so he can live on potatoes and water.

I have put a more favourable cafe than what often happens. Generally the Cottier has but an acre; fometimes, I know it from perfonal enquiry, in fituation remote from any town, he pays three guineas a year for a house whose first cost certainly was not five, and a rood of ground. In fome places the Cottier pays four times the rent of the Farmer,

Farmer, and in one place where this happened, the Cottiers were so diftreffed, that they could afford themselves but one meal a day, and that confifted of potatoes and of butter-milk, for which they paid a penny a quart, and they could never afford afford to procure themselves turf, and that place was the Hill of Oulart. I have feen computations of the lowest rate at which neceffaries could be procured, which feemed to fhew that it was impoffible for the Cottiers of fome diftricts to live without theft.

In various parts of the country the poor are exposed to a variety of difeafes, from the poornefs of their diet, from which the rich and even the farmers are exempt. In Kerry the poor live fo low, that I am affured by a medical man, that the addition of any fmall quantity of butter to their potatoes, is used as a cordial when they are ill with evident advantage. The poor of Ireland are more fubject to putrid diseases, than those of other countries who live on vegetable food; because potatoes, although they do not create a tendency to fuch diseases (unless they are injured by the froft, which fometimes happens) do not prevent them, as the green parts of vegetables do. The difeafe which is called in different places, white blifters, eating hive, and burnt holes, affects almoft exclufively the children of the poor in many parts of Ireland, and is extremely fatal: a chronic ulcerous fore throat, certainly not of the nature that might be fufpected, is obferved in the county of Waterford, and attributed

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