Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/239

 AGRICULTURE.] IRELAND 223 commissioners reports do not give the acreage in 1 847 under grass, and the census returns of 1841, though they give the acreage of arable land, do not distinguish between that under grass and that under crop. If, however, we deduct the amount under crop in 1847 from the total arable area in 1841, which is stated at 13,464,000 acres, we have only 8,225,425 acres under grass, the increase of grass land be tween 1841 and 1851 being, according to this calculation, 523,152 acres, while if we add the acreage left out of crop in 1847 it is probably 1,000,000 acres more. Since 1851 the acreage under grass has been gradually but uninter ruptedly increasing, the increase between that year and 1880 being 1,510,531 acres or 7 5 per cent, of the whole country, there being thus in all probability about 2,500,000 more acres under grass in 1880 than in 1841. In Leinster the increase has been 470,842 acres or 9 - 7 per cent., in Munster 572,746 or 9 6 per cent., in Ulster 98,422 or 17 per cent., and in Connaught 368,521 or 8-8 per cent. The largest percentage under grass is in Munster, and the smallest in Ulster, the proportionate difference between the two being 14 5 per cent. But in addition to this stated increase of acreage under grass, it is to be remem bered that a large proportion of the acreage under meadow and clover comes properly under this category, being really untilled land, and that this has increased between 1847 and 1880 by 770,961 acres, the increase in Leinster being 146,227, in Munster 253,866, in Ulster 211,334, and in Connaught 159,534. Thus if we deduct the area under meadow, the decrease in the area under crops between 1847 and 1880 would, even according to this table, be 928,312 acres, there being a decrease in cereals of 1,547,145, and an apparent increase in the area of green crops of 519,611 acres, and in flax of 99,222. As, however, about 1,000,000 acres formerly under potatoes were in 1847 left out of cultivation, it is probable that between 1846 and 1880 there was a decrease in the acreage under green crops as large as the apparent increase between 1847 and 1851. If, on the other hand, the acreage under meadow and clover be added to that under grass, the in crease between 1851 and 1880 of the two combined is 2,175,552 acres, and between 1841 and 1880 it is pro bably nearly 3,500,000, Sir William Petty estimated the area of Ireland in 1641 at 10,500,000 Irish acres, or 17,008,264 English acres, of which he classed 1,500,000 Irish acres, or 2,429,752 English acres, as rivers, highways, bogs; an area of similar extent as very coarse land ; and 7,500,000 Irish acres, or 12,148,760 English acres, as good meadow, arable, and pasture. According to the returns of the Census Commis sioners of 1841, the area of arable land comprehended 13,464,000 acres, plantations 374,482, water 630,825, and uncultivated land 6,295,735. Between 1841 and 1851, owing to works undertaken both by Government and private proprietors in order to give relief at the period of famine, the area of arable land showed the large increase of 1,338,581 acres, there being a decrease in the extent of waste land amounting to 1,086,493 acres, and in the area under woods amounting to 69,476, while the area under waste includes a large acreage under water. The returns of 1841 are, however, much less accurate than those from 1847. Between 1851 and 1880 the arable lands increased from 14,802,581 to 15,355,598 acres, or by 553,017, there being a decrease in the waste land of 577,184 acres, and an increase of the area under woods of 34,952 acres, while the total acreage of the country is stated in somewhat larger figures. The percentage of decline in waste land for the whole acreage of the country was 2 -9, there being a decline of 6 in Leinster, and of 4 5 in Munster, an increase, strange to say, of 7 in Ulster, and a decline of 7 -8 in Connaught, where there is still the large percentage of 33 2. Of the 4,632,308 acres returned for Ireland under the head of waste land in 1880, 1,718,380 acres were returned as bog and marsh, viz., 325,861- in Leinster, 324,826 in Munster, 372,387 in Ulster, and 695,309 in Connaught; and 2,064,361 acres as barren mountain land, 157,618 being in Leinster, 699,732 in Munster, 679,285 in Ulster, and 527,726 in Connaught, According to the report of Sir Richard Griffith, the total number of acres improvable in 1844 was 3,755,000, of which 1,425,000 were improvable for cultivation and 2,330,000 for pasturage. The reclamations of waste be tween 1841 and 1851 nearly all took place after 1844, and the total acreage of reclamations between 1841 and 1880 is 1,663,427, leaving therefore an acreage in 1880 of waste but reclaimable land amounting to 2,091,573. The term waste land is, however, used in a rather vague sense, and might without much exaggeration be made to include a con siderable portion of the area now classed as arable. The sig nificance of the change which has taken place in the acreage of the principal crops will be better understood if the tables already given are compared with Tables XII. and XIII. The area under cereals has declined between 1847 and 1880 by 1,547,145 acres, or nearly one-half; while in 1847 the produce of cereals reached 2,548,723 tons, in 1878 it amounted to only 1,226,655 tons, and in 1880 to 1,275,678 tons, the difference between 1847 and 1878 amounting to 1,322,068, and between 1847 and 1880 to 1,273,045. Allowance must, however, be made for the fact that since 1855 the estimates of produce, having been corrected by the Poor Law Guardians, have generally been lowered ; and of course the weather introduces a very variable element. In any case it would appear that generally there has been a decline in productive power from 1856 until 1871. For the five years up to and including 1860 there is a much lower average than for the five previous years, and the decline still continues for the ten years up to and includ ing 1870 ; but, except in the case of potatoes and cabbage, there is an increase for the ten years following, due to the high averages of 1874 and the two subsequent year?. The decline in the productive power may doubtless in a considerable degree be accounted for by the fact that the increase in the acreage under pasturage took place chiefly in the richer districts of the country, but it is also attributable, as is the low average still attained, to inadequate manuring, insufficient draining, inattention to the destruction of weeds, over-cropping, or in a word, to general ignorance in regard to the proper methods of cul ture. In some isolated instances the system of agriculture practised is quite on a par with that on the best farms of England and Scotland, and within recent years consider able progress has been made ; but as a whole an approach to a satisfactory state of things exists only in Ulster, where TABLE XII. Estimated Produce in Tons of the principal Crops for all Ireland in 1847, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1878, and 1880. Wheat. Oats. Barley. Bere. Rye. Beans. Pease. Potatoes. Turnips. Mangel. Cabbage. Flax. liny. 1847 614,575 1,612,921 248,933 42,393 12,784 17, 112 2,048,195 5,760,616 247,269 17,499 2,190,317 1851 313,620 1,507,876 248,299 44,275 19,692 31,123 4,441,022 6,081,326 466,235 401,622 33,861 2,518,977 1861 178,881 1,126,324 119,470 2,441 4,582 8,093 736 1,858,433 3,392,884 546,545 22,568 2,810,352 1871 143,121 1,035,529 167,927 1,345 5,253 8,958 879 2,793,641 4,246,332 761,863 12,919 3,315,525 1878 115,384 907,232 195,885 495 7,659 7,335 560 2,526,504 4,686,226 1,090,200 22,175 4,417,344 1880 111,385 977,923 172,222 411 3,648 9,694 399 2,985,859 4,339,688 604,421 360,036 25,532 3,795,003