IRELAND Italy, is found; and the black and grey marbles | portance, and frequent attempts have been made of Kilkenny are much prized, and exported to a considerable extent. There are copper and lead mines in Cork, Kerry, Wicklow, and other places. Small quantities of gold and silver have been found in Wicklow. Indeed, some stream-works were wrought in the latter co., on account of government, previously to the rebellion of 1798; and it is said that as much gold was obtained as paid the expense. But some mining operations in Wicklow, commenced by government early in the present century, having failed, all attempts to obtain the precious metals have been since entirely abandoned. Copper is the only metal which at present appears to repay the labour and expense of raising it: the ore is mostly sent to Wales to be smelted. Antimony, manganese, serpentine of excellent quality, fullers' earth, gypsum, limestone, slate, with beryls, and garnets, are the other chief mineral products. to show that they might be effected at no very great expense. But there are but few examples in any part of the island, and those under very peculiar circumstances, of successful bog cultivation. The attempts to drain the bogs hitherto made in Ireland have not been very successful; and even had they succeeded, it is doubtful whether the bogs would have produced any considerable return. It is, indeed, by no means clear, supposing them to be quite dried, that they would not, in most instances, be rendered still more worthless than at present. (Wakefield, i. 105.) In those parts, indeed, where bogs are scarce, they are the most valuable properties in the country. In not a few localities they have been wholly cut out; and where this is the case, and other bogs are not easily accessible, the inhabs. have sustained great privations from the want of fuel. The diversity of soils is not nearly so great in Ireland as in England. It has no stiff clay soils, such as those of Essex, Hants, and Oxfordshire, nor any chalk soils, as those of Hertford, Wilts, and Sussex. Sandy soils are also rare. Loam, resting on a substratum of limestone, predominates in Ireland; and, though often shallow, it is almost every where very fertile. A large part of Limerick, Tipperary, Roscommon, Meath, and Longford, consists of deep fine friable loam, and is, perhaps, not surpassed by any land in Europe. It is not permanently injured by the bad system clean, will yield an almost interminable system of corn crops; and how bad soever the order in which it is laid down to grass, it is in no long time covered with the finest pasture. The deep rich grazing lands on the banks of the Shannon and Fergus are not surpassed by the best in Lincolnshire. A good judge of such matters, Arthur Young, contends that, acre for acre, the soil of Ireland is superior to that of England, though, as the proportion of waste land in the former is much greater than in the latter country, this must be held an exaggerated statement. Had Mr. Young confined his remark to the cultivable land in both countries, it would have been quite correct. In fact, deducting the bogs and mountains, it is certain that Ireland is about the richest country, in respect of soil, in Europe. As a grazing country, Ireland is probably superior to any territory in the old world. The deficiency of good coal in Ireland is less felt as regards domestic than manufacturing purposes. About 2,800,000 acres, or nearly 1-7th part of the entire surface, consists of bogs, which are capable of furnishing an almost inexhaustible supply of peat at very little more expense than that of the labour required in digging it. About 1,576,000 acres of this peat soil are estimated to consist of flat red bog; the remaining 1,255,000, called mountain bogs, lie on the surface of the uplands. The red peat bogs, which form a remarkable feature of the country, are chiefly comprised in the great central plain of Ireland; and the of culture to which it is subjected, and if kept space bounded N. by a line drawn from Howth Head to Sligo, and S., by another from Wicklow Head to Galway, would include the greater portion of the Irish bogs. Unlike the English mosses, they are rarely level, but undulating; and in Donegal there is a bog completely diversified with hill and dale. These bogs consist of moist vegetable matter, containing a great deal of stagnant water and after heavy rains and fogs, sometimes burst, and inundate or overwhelm the surrounding country. But they vary infinitely in wetness, as also in depth and composition. The extensive bogs in the central part of the island, though separated from each other, have received the common name of the Bog of Allen. The bogs in general rest upon a stratum of blue clay, based on limestone, and are invariably above the level of the sea; their greatest elevation, however, not exceeding 488 ft. Many conflicting opinions have been entertained with respect to the origin of these bogs. It has been contended by some that they are of no great antiquity, and originated in the cutting down of the forests, after the invasion of Ireland by Henry II., or at a somewhat earlier period. It is alleged that the recumbent trees having intercepted and dammed up streams of water with the rubbish carried along with them, the whole became gradually covered with a vegetation of moss, sedgy grass, rushes, and various aquatic plants. But there seems but little foundation for this theory; and it is more probable that the bogs owe their origin to natural causes, and not to a supposititious cutting down of the forests. The English did not, till long after the reign of Henry II., spread themselves over any considerable portion of the country, and could not, therefore, be the agents in any very remote and extensive destruction of its woods, which, in fact, were both numerous and extensive long after the bogs had attained to their present extent. (See Boate's N. Hist. of Ireland, pp. 118-122., ed. 1652.) The drainage and cultivation of these extensive portions of the surface of Ireland have long been regarded as objects of great national im The flora and fauna of Ireland do not differ much from that of England. The arbutus and myrtle have been already mentioned, and besides these plants, most of those common to Britain are met with. The wild animals do not materially differ from those of England. Wolves formerly infested the country, but they were extirpated under Cromwell. The Irish greyhound, which was of use in clearing the country of these animals, is about 3 ft. in height, of a light colour, and of such strength and courage, that it is said to be more than a match for the mastiff or bulldog: it is now, however, nearly extinct. The numbers of deer have greatly declined with the clearance of the forests, and the progress of cultivation. The native Irish horse is seldom more than 15 hands high, very hardy, and sure-footed: it is used for all kinds of labour. A large bloodhorse is reared extensively in Meath, and is to be found in most of the rich grazing counties. The native Irish cattle, a breed with short legs, large bellies, and white faces, have been, to a considerable extent, superseded by the introduction of the Holderness, Staffordshire, and Devonshire breeds, either pure or crossed. As compared with Eng IRELAND land, but few sheep are raised in Ireland. The native Irish sheep is small, and covered with nearly as much hair as wool; but it is now uncommon in a pure state, having been crossed with various English breeds. The value of live stock (exclusive of goats) in 1851 was given by the census commissioners as 27,649,1517., being an increase over that in 1841 of 6,543,3437-equal to 31 per cent.; whilst the excess in value in 1861, compared with 1851, was 5,714,0434-equal to 21 per cent. In 1841, the value of stock on every 100 acres (exclusive of the larger rivers, lakes, and tideways), was 1047; in 1851 it was 1367, and in 1861, 16-44. In the provinces the value was-in Leinster, in 1841, 1237.; in 1851, 1517.; and in 1861, 1871. per 100 acres. In Munster, in 1841, it was 1077.; in 1851 it was 1324, and in 1861, 1657. In Ulster it was 1024 in 1841, 1537. in 1851, and 1707. in 1861; and in Connaught, 797, in 1841, 1047. in 1851, and 1304 in 1861. In the counties the increase in the average value of live stock in every 100 acres in 1841, 1851, and 1861, was as under :- Waterford. 119 135 172 53 Westmeath 111 162 193 82 Wexford 131 148 200 69 65 Wicklow Total of Ireland 21,038 Population. The first authentic account of the pop. of Ireland is given by Sir William Petty, in his tract entitled the Political Anatomy of Ireland.' Sir William was employed by government The appearance of the country is, in most parts, to superintend the survey and valuation of the indicative of the poverty and depressed condition forfeited estates, instituted during the protectorate; of the bulk of the pop. Generally speaking, what and so well did he execute his task, that his surare called farm-houses and offices in England, do vey continued, for the space of near two centunot exist in Ireland: and the aspect of the cot-ries, to be the standard of reference in the courts tages, which, in the vast majority of instances, are of the most wretched description; the smallness of the fields, which, instead of hedges and ditches, or stone fences, are usually divided by turf dykes; and the badness of the horse furniture, and of the agricultural implements, all impress the traveller with the most unfavourable convictions. But, how mortifying soever the contrast between the excellence of the soil and the state of the people, it is some satisfaction to know that it is less striking now than formerly. In many districts, a considerable advance has been made towards a better order of things; and the spirit of improvement has begun to scatter its of law as to all points of property. He had altogether, the best means of obtaining accurate information with respect to the numbers and condition of the people; and, as the results are exceedingly curious, it may be best to give them in his own words. 'The number of people now in Ireland (1762) is about 1.100,000; viz. 300,000 English, Scotch, and Welsh Protestants, and 800,000 Papists; whereof 1-4th are children unfit for labour, and 75,000 of the remainder are, by reason of their quality and estates, above the necessity of corporal labour; so as there remains 750,000 labouring men and women, 500,000 whereof do perform the present work of the nation. Females Persons The said 1,100,000 people do live in about 200,000 families or houses, whereof there are about 16,000 which have more than one chimney in each, and about 24,000 which have but one; all the other houses, being 160,000, are wretched nasty cabins, without chimney, window, or doorshut, even worse than those of the savage Americans.' (Polit. Anat. of Ireland, pp. 114, 118, ed. 1719.) In 1805, Mr. Newenham estimated the pop. at 5,395,456. An incomplete census was taken in 1821, from which the pop. was computed at 5,937,856. At length a complete census was taken in 1821, when Ireland was found to contain a pop. of 6,801,827. According to the census, taken in 1841, the pop. amounted to 8,175,124, viz. Leinster, 1,973,731; Munster, 2,396,161; Ulster, 2,386,373; Connaught, 1,418,859. Finally, the census of April 7, 1861, gave the following result :— Number of Inhabitants in 1861 Males A comparison of the census returns of 1841, 1851, and 1861, strikingly shows the decrease of population in the various provinces and counties: 14,730 Dublin City,Municipal 114,294 135,439 249,733 Total of Leinster 1,973,731 1,672,738 1,439,596 PROVINCE OF Suburbs. 19,132 27,099 46,231 MUNSTER. County 50,383 55,675 106,058 166,275 Kildare 43,200 41,730 Kilkenny City 6,395 7,686 84,930) 14,081 Cork City 80,720 85,732 78,892 County, E.R. County 53,414 56,062 109,476 W.R. King's 88,491 35,893 35,699 71,592 Kerry Limerick City Louth 36,847 38,293 75,140 County 170,983 Meath Tipperary N.R. Queen's 45,154 45,596 S.R. 108,466 90,750 Westmeath 46,170 44,686 90,856 Waterford City 184,358 139,080 23,216 25,297 23,220 Wexford County. 172,971 138,738 111,116 43,774 42,319 86,093 Total of Munster 2,396,161 1,857,736 1,503,200 IRELAND 1859 1860 Yoars Emigrants 1858 64,337 80,599 84,621 17,485 49,680 116,391 115,428 1861 1864 In 1861 there were 42.6 in every 100 families chiefly employed in agriculture-being a reduction in the proportion of 10 per cent. since 1851, and of 23-5 since 1841. In manufactures, trades, &c. there was also a reduction from 24-7 in 1851, and 23-9 in 1841 to 175 per cent. in 1861. In other pursuits the proportion increased from 10 per cent. in 1841 and 227 in 1851 to 39-9 in 1861. But these changes may be said to have arisen from the between 1851 and 1861, and the excess of births Had emigration and immigration been equal emigration of persons employed in agriculture or trade, who in the census of 1841 and 1851 were tion-on an average, equal to that of England over deaths-or the natural increase of populaclassed in these divisions: thus raising the pro-and Wales, the number of inhabitants, on the 7th portion of families which remained in the country who were engaged in other pursuits. The condition of the people is more satisfactorily exhibited in considering the means upon which they are dependent. Thus, in 1861, there were chiefly dependent on vested means and professions 8.9 per cent. of the families-an increase from 2-6 in 1841 and from 7 per cent. in 1851. Engaged in the direction of labour there were 451 per cent. in 1861, compared with 344 in 1851 and 318 in 1841. There were living by their own manual labour in 1861, 353 per cent. of families; whilst in 1851 the rate was 52, and in 1841 62-9 per cent. Those whose means of subsistence were not specified, and many of whom probably should be included with those having vested means, amounted to 10.7 per cent.; the proportion in 1841 having been only 27, and in 1851 66 per cent. Of the entire population, 2,705,665, or 46-66 per cent., were returned in the family schedules of the census of 1861 as having some occupation or pursuit; and 3,093,302, or 53-34 per cent., had no specified occupations. This latter number included 1,770,714 persons (890,904 males and 879,810 females) under 15-the age at which employment might be expected to commence. Above that age those having no specified occupations amounted to 1,322,588, of whom 101,673 were males, and 1,220,915 females. April, 1861, would have been 7,241,758. Rural Economy.-The bulk of the population soil. The competition for small patches of land depend for employment and subsistence on the is consequently very keen, and the rents greater than the occupiers can afford, though not greater than might be paid for them, were they consolidated into proper sized farms, and cultivated on session of a piece of ground has long been a conan improved system. In Ireland, in fact, the posdition all but indispensable to existence; and we need not, therefore, wonder that the occupiers should cling with desperate tenacity to their small patches. but well-understood agreement among the cottiers, This has led in most parts to a sort of tacit or small farmers, to support each other against intruders; and, in the greater part of Ireland, land to secure what is called the tenant's right, it is as necessary to the quiet possession of the bargain with the landlord. Any tenant who should or the good-will of the occupier, as it is to make a neglect this indispensable precaution would run a great risk of being disturbed in, or violently ousted bances by which Ireland has been so long agitated from, his possession. Indeed, most of the disturand disgraced have been of an agrarian character, the occupancy of the land. It is not necessary to or have been directly or indirectly connected with According to the census of 1861, there were various circumstances which have led to that enter into any lengthened disquisitions as to the 1,053,045 persons, or 18:16 per cent. of the en-minute parcelling of the land that is the bane tire population, engaged in occupations placed of Ireland. The greatest influence is no doubt under the head of ministering to food; of these 945,615 were males, and 107,430 females. 490,492 to be ascribed to the habit of providing for the persons, or 8:46 per cent, of the people, ranged sons, and sometimes, also, the daughters of the under employments ministering to clothing, of occupiers of land, by giving them shares of their father's holdings. whom 150,856 were males, and 339,636 females. Ministering to lodging, furniture, and machinery were 463,562 persons; to conveyance and travelling, 68,791; to banking and agency, 4,568; to literature and education, 40,853; to religion, 10,627; to charity and benevolence. 983; to health, 6,735; to justice and government, 55,085; to amusement, 2,840; to science and art, 757; and under unclassified occupations, which could not be properly placed under any of the above heads, were 507,327 persons. The total number of Irish who left the United Kingdom between 1841 and 1851 was, by the reports of the emigration commissioners, 1,240,737; whilst the number who emigrated from Irish ports during the period from 1st April, 1851, to 7th April, 1861, according to the returns obtained by the registrar-general, was 1,208,350. The following are the number of emigrants who left Ireland in each of the fourteen years between 1851 and 1864: A good deal of what is peculiar in the mode of occupying land in Ireland has grown out of the circumstances under which it was originally acquired by the ancestors of its present owners. Cromwell and William III.; and this vast amount About nine-tenths of the land was forfeited under of property was mostly either gratuitously bestowed upon, or was acquired at a very small sacrifice, by noblemen and gentlemen of fortune and influence in England. Such persons could not be expected to leave England to reside in Ireland; and, in point of fact, they very rarely visited their estates in the latter, but satisfied themselves with taking what rents they could get for them. There was no sympathy between them and their tenants: the religious and political principles of one party were opposed to those of the other. The landlords looked upon their tenants as a sort of portunity should present itself, would immediately unwilling bondsmen, who, if any favourable opshake off their dependence on them; and the tenants regarded the landlords as usurpers unjustly intruded on the estates of others, and as enemies to the religion and rights of the Irish people. Very few had any confidence in the stability of such a state of things; and it could not be expected that landlords should care much about the permanent interests of such estates, or that they should lay out any considerable sum on The foregoing table reduced to proportions per their improvement. To build a farm-house or cent:- offices was an outlay which, for a lengthened period, no Irish landlord ever incurred; and even to this day the old habit maintains an ascend- ancy, and the great majority of landlords lay out little or nothing on buildings. In conse- quence of this practice, and of the general small- ness of the holdings, and the poverty of the oc- cupiers, the farm-buildings, if we may so call them, of Ireland are, as already stated, quite unworthy of the name; and, in most instances, are wretched in the extreme. Such a thing as a barn is hardly known among the smaller occupiers and the corn is not unfrequently The three principal crops grown in Ireland are oats, potatoes, and hay, which combined occupy about three-fourths of the entire area under til- The chief alteration in the surface of the coun- try was caused by the conversion of bog and waste The amount returned under bog and waste is not, The census returns show that the number of small holdings in Ireland, above one and up to The acreage of the entire country, and the pro-five to fifteen acres decreased from 252,799 in 1841 portion under arable land, plantations, towns, water, and uncultivated districts, at the several census periods in 1841, 1851, and 1861, are given in the following table, showing the number of acres in each province under cultivation, or to 183,931 in 1861, or 27-2 per cent. The farms the years 1841 and 1851; the changes in the next ten years have been comparatively trifling. This statement does not show the number of land- holders in Ireland, but the number of distinct holdings, the enumerator having to account for the total acreage of every townland. There was another return made, for the first time, in the The enumerators of the census of 1861 were in- structed to obtain an account treating all farms held adjoined or not. This reduced the return of the by one person as one holding, whether the lands total number of holdings in 1861 from 610,045 to 553,664. It showed that 39,210 persons held land above one and not exceeding two acres; 164,006 thirty; 65,896 from thirty to fifty; 49,654 from from five to fifteen acres; 127,899 from fifteen to fifty to 100; 20,375 from 100 to 200; 9,046 from 200 to 500; and 2,437 held above 500 acres. The return being novel, is approximate rather than precisely accurate; the tendency of corrections would be to reduce the numbers, but it would not From the returns of the Registrar-General it appears that the total area of land under cultiva- |