The next visitor, who brings with him a son and a daughter, is himself the product of an Irish bog in the wildest of the wilds.  His Parish Priest had sent him to me.  A little awkwardness, which is soon dispelled, and the point is reached.  This fine specimen of the ’bone and sinew’ has had a hard struggle to bring up his ‘long family’; but, with a capable wife, who makes the most of the res angusta domi—­of the pig, the poultry, and even of the butter from the little black cows on the mountain—­he has risen to the extent of his opportunities.  The children are all doing something.  Lace and crochet come out of the cabin, the yarn from the wool of the ‘mountainy’ sheep, carded and spun at home, is feeding the latest type of hosiery knitting machine and the hereditary handloom.  The story of this man’s life which was written to me by the priest cannot find space here.  The immediate object of his visit is to get his eldest daughter trained as a poultry instructress to take part in some of the ‘County Schemes’ under the Department, and to obtain for his eldest son, who has distinguished himself under the tuition of the Christian Brothers, a travelling scholarship.  For this he has been recommended by his teachers.  They had marked this bright boy out as an ideal agricultural instructor, and if I could give the reader all the particulars of the case it would be a rare illustration of the latent human resources we mean to develop in the Ireland that is to be.  I explain that the young man must pass a qualifying examination, but am glad to be able to admit that the circumstances of his life, which would have to be taken into account in deciding between the qualified, are in his case of a kind likely to secure favourable consideration.

And now enters a sporting friend of mine, a ‘practical angler,’ who comes with a very familiar tale of woe.  The state of the salmon fisheries is deplorable:  if the Department does not fulfil its obvious duties there will not be a salmon in Ireland outside a museum in ten years more.  He has lived for forty-five years on the banks of a salmon river, and he knows that I don’t fish.  But this much the conversation reveals:  his own knowledge of the subject is confined to the piece of river he happens to own, the gossip he hears at his club, and the ideas of the particular poacher he employs as his gillie.  His suggested remedy is the abolition of all netting.  But I have to tell him that only the day before I had a deputation from the net fishermen in the estuary of this very river, whose bitter complaint was that this ’poor man’s industry’ was being destroyed by the mackerel and herring nets round the coast, and—­I thought my friend would have a fit—­by the way in which the gentlemen on the upper waters neglect their duty of protecting the spawning fish!  Some belonging to the lower water interest carried their scepticism as to the efficacy of artificial propagation to the length of believing that hatcheries are partially