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into straw and lodging: the same richness produces an
abundance of weeds, so that he who keeps his land most
free, and at the same time friable and pulverised, is
deemed the best farmer, and most of them proceed no
farther in the improvement of their grounds. A sum-
mer fallow is considered absolutely necessary, at stated
periods, to eradicate weeds effectually, every attempt to
cleanse the ground by green crops proving utterly in-
efficient.
The succession of crops for rich ground is potatoes
for two seasons, followed by three crops of oats, and
after a season’s fallow, wheat for one crop, again fol-
lowed by three crops of oats and a fallow: when land has
been exhausted by bad management, the fallow is re-
sorted to every fourth year. The crops commonly culti-
vated are, wheat, oats, barley, bere, rye, clover, flax, and
potatoes. Considerable benefit is thought to arise from
a change of seed even between neighbouring baronies;
and the use of a pickle either of water saturated with
salt, of chamber-lye, or of quicklime and water mixed
thinly together, is universally deemed essential to the
securing of the expected wheat crop. Flax is generally
sown in small patches for domestic use, but seldom
cultivated largely for sale. The crops less common
are turnips, vetches, rape, peas (both grey and white),
beans, cabbage, and a little chicory. Turnips are only
met with on the farms of gentlemen who unite tillage
with grazing, and are sown mostly for feeding sheep.
The culture of vetches has been long partially practised,
particularly in the neighbourhood of Drogheda, being
chiefly used as winter-feeding for the working horses,
for which purpose they are cut before the plant is quite
ripe, and made up and given as hay. Grey peas have
also been sown for many years, throughout the county,
upon poor gravelly soils and sometimes upon clay: they
are invariably allowed to run to seed, and then pulled
with a crooked stick, bound in sheaves, and housed when
dry, to be either threshed at leisure and the straw used
as litter, or given to horses without being threshed,
particularly in those parts where meadow is scarce.
The barony of Duleek is almost the only district in which
beans form part of the staple crop, and even there they
are raised in small quantities only. Cabbages, chiefly
the large flat Dutch, are found to succeed well; but the
expense of transplanting and the difficulty of protecting
them from depredations have excited great prejudice
against their general introduction.
The quantity of land applied to green crops and
artificial grasses is comparatively small, in consequence
of the vast tracts of natural grasses of the most pro-
ductive kind; the depth and richness of the soil, and
its tendency to moisture without being absolutely wet,
causing it to throw up a sward of nourishing verdure
unequalled in other parts; hence it is that grazing is so
generally followed. All the old pastures produce natural
grasses of the best kinds: graziers seldom direct their
attention to procuring artificial kinds, from an impression
that after three years the land will revert to its natural
coating, though covered with other kinds when laid down.
The dry warm gravelly soils spontaneously throw up a
luxuriant herbage of white clover, and lands of a clayey
nature, when drained and manured with limestone gravel,
exhibit a similar tendency. As cattle are considered to
thrive best on grounds that produce the greatest variety
of grasses, the main object of the farmer, when about
VOL. II.—361
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to lay down land, is to procure the greatest variety of
seeds of the best quality; others sow white and red
clover mixed in equal quantities, without any hay-seed,
from an opinion that the land thus treated will throw
up its natural grasses more luxuriantly the third or
fourth year, than if sown with hay-seed. The marshes
of Rosmin and Emla, on the Borora, are the only wet
lands of sufficient extent to claim special notice, though
there are others of smaller size scattered through the
county, which, being mostly improved by draining, are
chiefly applied to rearing young cattle. Those of Rosmin
and Emla are nearly in a state of nature, and are covered
with water during winter from the overflowing of the
river: in summer they throw up an immense crop of
grass, which is greedily consumed by horses. The land
held by small farmers is badly fenced, but on the lands
of the gentry and large farmers, the fences are formed of
quicksets after the English method. From ten to twelve
years after being first made, the hedge is either cut down
or plashed and laid. Wall fences are very rare, though
stone-faced ditches are not uncommon. The kinds of
manure in most common use are stable dung, ditch-
scourings, limestone gravel, marl, and lime. Meadows
are manured either immediately after being mown or
during the frosts of winter. Coal ashes are used as a
top-dressing on clay meadows with good effect, as also
are marl and limestone gravel. Much attention is paid
to the breed of black cattle both for the butcher and
the dairy; the art of fattening cattle is an object of
principal attention with most farmers. Early in May
the graziers open their pastures for the stock to be fat-
tened; for feeding is their principal object, as land bears
too high a rent to admit of its being applied to raise
stock: the cattle, after being bled, are turned out till
they become fit for the butcher, when they are sent to
the Dublin market, or sold at the neighbouring fairs.
There are several graziers who fatten from 300 to 500
cows daring the season, besides bullocks and sheep. A
few sheep, generally pets, are occasionally pastured
among the neat cattle, but the practice is condemned
as injuring the “proof” of the beast, because sheep
devour the sweetest grass, and it is the ultimate object
of the grazier to obtain a character for fattening proof
beasts that will “do well,” a term applied by butchers
to animals possessing a considerable quantity of inward
fat. Beasts purchased in May are often fattened and
sold before Christmas, otherwise they are fed during
winter with turnips, potatoes, and hay, “Where distilleries
are near, the bullocks are fattened on the potale and
grains: these animals attain an uncommon degree of
fatness, and are preferred by the butchers on account
of their superior weight in proportion to their size; but
their beef, though juicy, is not well-flavoured: it eats
dry, and the fat melts before the fire or in the pickling
tub. There are a few dairies of considerable extent,
but the butter made in them is held in little estimation.
Most of the farmers who occupy from 80 to 100 acres
keep a few milch cows, the produce of which, after sup-
plying the family, is sold; yet, from the want of nourish-
ing green food in winter and spring, they cannot supply
the market with milk and butter during the season they
bear the highest price. Where potale can be procured,
milk is plentiful but of inferior quality. Few calves
are reared on these farms: those that are brought up
are fed on new milk for the first fortnight, and then
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