It would readily let at that period for three guineas an acre on a lease.

Four years rent and expenses of clearing 27 6 0 Received for rent of the two crops

29 11 6

Thus there was a profit of two guineas an acre on the clearing alone, exclusive of the permanent value, I fear there are few would have had so much spirit.

An embankment at Bunoun, the estate of Mr. Geoghegan O'Neill, has reclaimed upwards of 80 acres from the sea. Mr. Bulteel has also made a spirited and valuable improvement, by reclaiming a large piece of ground from the sea near the town of Galway. It is highly probable that a large tract of land could be taken from the sea near Oranmore; it has a rich muddy bottom; also a large quantity of cut-out bog near Oranmore, the estate of the right honourable James Fitzgerald, could be drained and reclaimed. There is a great deal of ground near Tyrone and Kilcolgan that could also be reclaimed. In many other parts of the county vast quantities of land on the banks of rivers or arms of the sea could be easily reclaimed. A great deal of money has been very unnecessarily expended in making very deep drains in bogs. One deep drain only is generally sufficient to intercept the water flowing into the bog from higher ground. The chief improvement in bog is putting the surface, by frequent turning in winter, into a state to be washed by the rains of that season, assisted by alternate freezing and thawing. Nothing can be more erroneous than attempting to cultivate red bog in hot weather, which, instead of assisting in the decomposition, only converts it into turf fit for burning, in which state it will remain undissolved and unproductive for many years. The objec

tion generally made to cultivating bog in winter, of not being able to get men to go on it at that season, may be easily obviated by procuring wooden shoes, or rather shoes with wooden soles of birch, alder, or any other light timber. These are a kind of shoes every landed proprietor should introduce on his estate; they are exceedingly cheap, last long, every countryman can make them, and if properly shaped are as easy to the feet as the generality of thick soled shoes worn by country people: the chief art is giving the sole a turn up at the toe like leather soles, instead of making them to lye flat on the ground: they must be lightly shod all round.

Much has been written on the subject of employing the poor in the cultivation of bog by parliamentary enactments. I have not seen any plan that is likely to succeed; they have all failed to point out from whence the funds for this purpose are to come, and many seem entirely to forget that bogs are private property. Did the landed proprietors consult their own interest, or that of their posterity, it is with them the improvement should originate.

In one of the public prints in 1820, it was with great confidence stated "that nothing could be made by improving bog." This ignorant and presumptuous assertion is so totally in the teeth of numberless proofs to the contrary, that it would be waste of time to attempt to refute it. I would advise the proprietor of that pa per to procure some person who is not so totally igno rant of rural economy as the editor seems to be, to write for him on this subject.

Some years since I proposed the establishment of a waste land company, and was authorised by some mo→ nied men to advertise for the purchase of waste land. I had many proposals offering great tracts of highly

improvable ground on very advantageous terms, but it vanished into thin air. After incurring a considerable expense in advertising and for postage, I found that was all my reward. On stating, amongst other matters, the appointment of a person to conduct the improvements, I found that an affair of such magnitude I was expected to conduct for a salary of fifty pounds a year. I therefore retired in disgust, and the affair died with Mr. Hamilton, the late secretary of the Farming Society of Ireland. Notwithstanding the failure of this attempt, I still think that, by a company with an ample capital, is the only likely means to accomplish this very very desirable object. It is unreasonable and unfeeling to expect that the means for this improvement should come from the public purse, that finds it so difficult to provide for those unavoidable demands on it, that a long protracted war has necessarily occasioned.Note, it is a very curious thing to see algæ of various kinds, sea pink, and many other plants that usually grow on rocks, flourishing in the banks of bogs, washed by the sea, at high water mark, near Ardbear.

In Bartram's travels in West Florida, a work highly esteemed for its veracity, we meet the following account of alluvial deposits, as difficult to be solved as the formation of many of our bogs. "On our return "home we called by the way at the Cliffs, which is a "perpendicular bank or bluff rising up out of the river "nearly one hundred feet above the present surface of "the water, whose active current sweeps along by it. "From eight or nine feet below the loamy vegetable "mould at top, to within 4 or 5 feet of the water, these "cliffs present to view strata of clays, marle, and chalk "of all colours, as brown, red, white, yellow, blue "and purple; there are separate strata of these various "colours, as well as mixed or party coloured; the

"lowest stratum next the water exactly of the same "black rich soil as the adjacent low cypress swamps "above and below the bluffs; and here in the cliffs we 66 see vast stumps of cypress and other trees, which at "this day grow on those low wet swamps, and which "range on a level with them. These stumps are "sound, stand upright, and seem to be rotted off about "two feet above the spread of their roots; their trunks, "limbs, &c. lie in all directions about them. But "when these swampy forests were growing, and by "what cause they were cut off and overwhelmed by "the various strata of earth, which now rise above "one hundred feet above the brink of the cliffs, and "two or three times that height but a few hundred "yards back, are enquiries perhaps not easily an"swered."

SECTION XXI.

HABITS OF INDUSTRY, OR WANT OF IT AMONGST the

PEOPLE.

I HAVE had innumerable proofs, in my professional pursuits, that the lower classes of this county cannot with justice be accused of want of industry, when working for themselves. When working for others they do as little as they can, not only from a want of sufficient remuneration, but from the lazy habits they are permitted to grow up in from their boyhood, by the indolent stewards of the country. I have had occasion to mention this in another section. As there is no difference made in the wages of the industrious or indolent, one of the chief inducements to exertion is withheld. That they are extremely industrious may be

seen in numberless cases, in cleaning ground from stones, of which they make immense piles and lose much land; if instead of this they could be induced to bury them deep in the potato furrows, they would find it a great improvement. If this practice is pursued, the stones fit for building should be reserved. In the improvement of bog they are also very industrious, where they have any capital (which they seldom have), and a sufficient length of tenure; but what can be expected from a cottier that can scarcely exist, or that, if he improves bog without having a lease, furnishes the certain means of dispossessing himself, by creating ground that will be measured on him by a new agent ignorant of country affairs, or of the poor man's exertions? Much bog has been reclaimed between Shannon-bridge and Ballinasloe by cottier tenants, and in many other parts of the county. Scarcely a tenant near a bog that does not improve a little. In Cunnamara a great change for the better has been made in the habits of the people. When Mr. D'Arcey went first to live in that country, he found it very difficult to find any person on his estate inclined to labour for him. Indeed, prior to this happy era, there was scarcely any demand for labourers; but now they are at least as industrious as the inhabitants of any other part of the county, and anxious to procure employAt a former period, smuggling alone occupied the minds of every class, and their whole occupation was either watching the approach of smuggling vessels or revenue cruisers, or helping to unload the vessels with singular despatch when they appeared, and distributing their ill-got ventures through the country. Happily, at present, smuggling is little practised, and a consequent improvement in manners has taken place. The number of holy days which, from the way they

ment.