rape followed by tares, potatoes, turnips, or cabbages.  These crops are succeeded by grain or flax the next year, with which clover is sown for mowing and stall-feeding, yielding two or three cuttings.  The green crops are so timed as to give a full supply for house-feeding throughout the year.  Nothing is neglected by those skilful and thrifty farmers; the county is famous for orchards, and when I was in the city of Armagh, last autumn, I saw in the market square almost as many loads of apples as of potatoes.

The connection of large grazing farms with pauperism, as cause and effect, has not received sufficient attention from the friends of social progress.  I resolved last year to test this matter by a comparison.  We have at present no check upon the legally enforced depopulation of this country except the interest of the landlords, or what they imagine to be their interest.  It is well that the question should be determined whether it is really for the benefit of the owners of the land that they should clear it of Christians and occupy it with cattle—­in other words, whether Christians or cattle will pay more rent and taxes.  I omit all higher considerations, because some of the most philanthropic and enlightened defenders of the present land system have defended it on this low ground.  In order to make the test complete and unexceptionable, I have selected a comparatively poor district for tillage, and one of the richest I could find for grazing, giving all possible natural advantages to Scullyism.  But the test would not be fair unless the occupiers of the poorer land had a tolerably secure tenure so long as they paid the highest rent that a reasonable agent could impose.  I thought also that possible objections would be obviated if the tenantry were destitute of ‘the fostering care of a resident landlord.’  Therefore, instead of selecting the tenants of Lord Downshire, or Lord Roden, or Lord Dufferin, I have fixed upon the tenants of Lord Kilmorey, because he and the producers of the rents which he enjoys have never seen one another in the flesh, and they have never received one word of encouragement or instruction from him in the whole course of their lives.  Accordingly, with the Union of Kilkeel, which comprises the Mourne district, I have compared the Union of Trim, which comprises some of the richest grazing land in Ireland.  Travellers have noted that population always grows thick on rich lands, while it is sparse on poor lands.  No one requires to be told the reason of this.

The Unions of Kilkeel and Trim have populations very nearly equal—­viz., Kilkeel, 22,614; Trim, 22,918.  The total arable land in Kilkeel is 50,000 statute acres, giving 2 1/3 acres on an average for each person, and 14 acres for each holding.  Trim contains 119,519 statute acres, giving 5 acres to each person, and 42 to each holding.

In Mourne the area of land under crops is 20,904 acres (nearly half), giving one acre of tillage to each inhabitant, and 6 acres to each holding of 14 acres.  In Trim the area under crops is 38,868 acres, giving 2 acres for each inhabitant, and 14 for each holding of 42 acres.