in damp situations; and the fir for all kinds of carpenters' work, for which it is excellent; also for laths, which are thought to be much more lasting than those from foreign fir. Sometimes this species of timber is twisted into ropes, much used for supporting the beds of the cottiers, as they bear damp better than hempen ropes. On the On the verge of most bogs oak is usually found, but further into the bogs fir is the kind mostly discovered. Bogs on mountains generally produce more timber than those in flat situations, which seldom furnish any timber, but on their borders. Yew of considerable size is frequently found buried in bogs. If it can be procured without what the workmen term shakers (cracks), it makes beautiful tables.* Timber buried in bogs is discovered by going on them early in a dewy morning, as the dew never lies on the bog over the tree; they ascertain with a long spear if the timber is sound and worth extricating from the bog. Gross timber should be cut with a cross-cut saw whilst standing; the handles to be turned for this purpose at the forge. Where timber is sold by the foot, and very gross, a material saving will be made, at least a foot in length. In the progress of the work iron wedges of different sizes are used to give freedom to the operation of the saw, and a pit must be dug around the tree to give the workmen elbow room. In the cutting of

One of the most beautiful tables I have ever seen is of this wood. at the Rev. Dean French's near Elphin. It is about four feet diameter, and without the least flaw. I have lately been informed of an immense yew tree, growing in 1808, at Grassford, in Denbighshire, North Wales. At five feet from the ground the circumference was 27 feet 9 inches: it had originally eleven immense limbs; two are decayed; two are advancing fast to that state, but seven are in a thriving state. It has stood in the reigns of seventeen kings, three queens, and the commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell, from the reign of Henry IV. in 1399.

every species of timber in Ireland, a very careless method is pursued. The hatchet-men, to prevent the necessity of stooping, generally leave much of the best of the tree in the ground. In those that do not shoot again, as larch and all the firs, it obstructs the scythe, and in those from which it is wished to procure another growth, it is particularly injurious, as, instead of the shoots being produced from the roots, they are produced on the stump, in a brush; and to encrease the evil, those, instead of all but one or two being rubbed off (not cut) are all permitted to remain. This is the chief cause of the wretched oak woods we generally see in this county, indeed I may say all through Ireland, and probably in England. Many gentlemen are now beginning to thin their oak woods, but when they have grown up for 10 or 12 years in a thicket, it is too late to expect much benefit from thinning. To produce the full benefit of the practice I have recommended, it must be commenced in the first, or at least the second year, when the shoots, as I have mentioned before, should be rubbed off, and not cut; for if not cut quite clean to the bark the evil will be encreased by the multiplication of the shoots. Nothing can be more grossly neglected than the plantations of this county, I may say of Ireland. They are, with the exception of Mount Bellew, Clonbrock, and a few other places, scarcely ever thinned until they are like Maypoles, and the poverty of the original idea made manifest by the admission of light. I recollect some years since asking a wood-ranger at Dunsandle, why some small trees, that I had marked two years before, were not cut down, his answer, I imagined would be that of most gentlemen and wood-rangers, "Lord, Sir, do 66 you think I am such a fool as to cut down my mas"ter's trees, when I could get nothing worth while for

them." Probably they have remained uncut to this day, to the great injury of the standing timber.

SECTION XX.

QUANTITY OF BOG AND WASTE GROUND. THE POSSIBILITY AND MEANS OF IMPROVING THEM, AND THE OBSTACLES TO THEIR IMPROVEMENT.

In this county the quantity of bog and other waste ground is very great, especially in the baronies of Moycullen, Ballynahinch, and Ross, occupying that extensive country from Galway to Killeny bay, a distance of upwards of thirty miles, and nearly as much in breadth from the sea to Cong. Of this vast tract, containing upwards of 500,000 acres, very little is in cultivation, and that chiefly near the coast. There is very little of this country that could not be improved by burning the surface, and manuring with either sea weed or lime, as in many places there are quarries of limestone, and at Oughterard limestone is in great abundance. On the sea coast the means of improvement are easily had, as great quantities of limestone are brought from the coasts of Clare and Galway and the island of Arran, as ballast; this could be extended to

any amount. A great extent of ground would be improved by irrigation on very moderate terms. Sea sand and a species of coraline also abound in almost every bay, and when they have been tried, their fertilizing effects have been astonishing. I have mentioned those means of improvement under another head. There is also a large tract of mountain between Loughrea and the county of Clare, that could also be easily

reclaimed by irrigation and planting. Of bogs there are immense quantities, all reclaimable. In fact I have scarcely ever seen a bog that could not be reclaimed at a remunerating expense. Most of those who object to this on account of the expense, seem to think that it is all expenditure and no return; but this, though a too common idea, is a very erroneous one. It is true there can be no improvement without a previous expenditure of money; but what species of agricultural, or any other pursuit, can be carried on without this outlay? How much money must be expended before a crop of wheat can be put in the pocket, or what can be made of any kind of stock without it?-In many instances where bog or waste ground is of such a nature (as all the mountains generally are) as to produce red or yellow ashes, the return by rape, potatoes, and many other crops, is made the first year, and frequently a large sum beyond the expense. In red bog that produces only white ashes, the return will be longer delayed, but certain.

Mr. Young, in his tour in Ireland, "Whatever the means used, certain it is that no meadows are equal to those gained by improving a bog; they are of a value which scarcely any other lands rise to in Ireland; I should suppose it would not fall short of forty shillings an acre, and rise in many cases to three pounds."-If those were the sentiments of Mr. Young at the period he wrote, what would they be now since the introduction of Fiorin grass on bogs?-Again," Many potatoes are planted in bogs that are drained; they are the first thing they plant, manuring with limestone gravel and dung; the first will not do alone, very little dung will do ; the crop is superior in quantity to those of any other land; they will get fifty pecks more than from grass land.” A remarkable instance of this species of improvement

in the county of Mayo is detailed also in this valuable work. "A curragh of one hundred acres, that is, a wet quaking bog or qua, which will not do for turf, with a long sedgy grass on it, part of a farm at thirty pounds a year, lord Altamont (late marquiss of Sligo) took it into his hands with the consent of the tenant; he drained it, at an expense of £30. by drains ten feet wide and five deep at 7d. per perch; this simple thing improved it so much, that without any other improvement he set it to the same tenant at seventy pounds per year, made so perfectly sound, that bullocks of 8 cwt. could graze on it."

Lord Kaims gives a remarkable instance of the value of improved bog. "At the seat of Mr. Burnet of "Kemnay, ten miles from Aberdeen, a kitchen gar"den, a flower garden, a wilderness of trees indige"nous and exotic, are all in a peat moss, (bog) where "water stagnates from one foot to two under the sur"face."

This subject has been so often and ably discussed, and the proofs both here and in Scotland are so clear, that I shall not dwell longer on it; which is no little self denial, as I confess it is a very favourite subject. Much ground has been cleared of stones, with great profit. An instance came under my own eye worthy of the attention of the doubters; a very numerous class in this county, indeed nearly as numerous as the sneerers. The late Mr. Bartley, parish priest of Kilconickny near St. Clerans, cleared two acres of ground, at an expense of eighteen guineas: it was so very rocky that it was not previously worth five shillings per acre. The first year it was let for potatoes at six guineas an acre; the second year, for the same purpose, at seven guineas per acre. It was, when I saw it in 1803, under remarkably fine barley and clover, and perfectly clear of stones.