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spots covered with soft grasses. Lugnaquilla, to the very
summit, which is nearly flat and clothed with a dry green
sward of velvet softness, is a good sheep pasture. The
cattle reared in the northern part of the county are
chiefly for the Dublin market; in the southern, for
those of Ross and Waterford. The milk in the former
is chiefly applied to the feeding of lambs for the Dub-
lin market; and in the vicinity of Rathdrum some
butter is made that is in high esteem in that city. But
the common application of grass lands is to the feeding
of store cattle and the produce of hay. Both cattle
and sheep are commonly small; and the sheep of the
mountains are usually very wild and active. Lime is
one of the principal manures; the cultivation of the
land in Shillelagh entirely depends on the use of lime
brought from Carlow county. It is also imported to
Bray, Wicklow, and Arklow from Sutton, on the south
side of Howth, as no limestone is found in the county,
except in the alluvial beds, the pebbles of which have
sometimes been burned. Marl and limestone gravel
are used very extensively. Oxen are employed by many
in the labours of husbandry, sometimes in teams by
themselves, but more frequently yoked with horses.
The agricultural implements are of the ordinary im-
proved construction, and the carriages one-horse cars.
In the great vale of Newcastle the country is enriched
and enlivened with hedgerows of various growth, in-
terspersed with timber trees, but badly plashed; most
other parts exhibit an appearance of nakedness from
the fences being commonly composed of rough mounds
of earth, covered here and there with furze. Walls
are sometimes formed by piling the stones on the moun-
tain lands, but so loosely that breaches are constantly
occurring. Frequently the land is so encumbered with
rocks as to be utterly valueless until these have been
blasted or undermined, and buried. The gardens in
the barony of Newcastle are generally very productive.
There are a few orchards. Owing to the nature of the
country, there is more natural wood than perhaps in
any district in Ireland of the same, extent: it consists
chiefly of coppices, usually cut at 30 years’ growth,
which enrich some of the most romantic glens. But
the finest timber is that in gentlemen’s demesnes, with
which this county is so much embellished; that in
Powerscourt Park and Rosanna is perhaps unequalled in
grandeur by any in the island. Large tracts adapted
to the growth of timber remain neglected, although Dr.
Frizell, of Castlekevin, Hen. Grattan, Esq., M.P., and
some other proprietors, by their extensive and flourish-
ing plantations on mountains of considerable elevation,
have proved the capabilities of such situations. The
natural growth of the country is chiefly oak, birch, and
hazel. Of the vast extent of bog and mountain, the
greater portion forms the wild region in its centre. The
mountainous and uncultivated lands of the entire range
were estimated by the surveying engineer, who ex-
amined the district with the view of developing its
capabilities, at 329,967 acres, of which 97,190 are black
bog, and the remainder a moory soil, commonly pro-
ducing coarse sedgy grass or heath, interspersed in many
parts with tracts of pasture land, on some of which large
numbers of sheep and young cattle are fed, while others,
now unproductive, might be brought into a state of
profitable cultivation by draining and manuring. The
bogs on the outskirts of the mountains are in some
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places becoming exhausted by the constant digging for
turf; the barony of Newcastle is now beginning to
apprehend a deficiency of that valuable article in the
marsh extending along the coast northward from Wick-
low. The peat of this tract, from its maritime situation,
is found to be impregnated with salt, which gives its
slight flame a blue colour. To make it fit for use, it
is necessary to reduce it to a soft mud and spread it
upon the surface to dry, in which state it is divided into
lumps of convenient size, and when dry is carried home
at the approach of winter; its superior durability com-
pensates for the greater trouble in preparing it than in
digging for that of the mountains. In the barony of
Shillelagh is a tract several miles in length, called the
Derry bog, the principal of the kind south of Lugna-
quilla. The ordinary fuel is everywhere peat, though
much coal is imported to Bray, Wicklow, and Arklow
from Whitehaven, for the gentry and farmers of the
surrounding districts.
Wicklow is not less remarkable for the variety and
importance of its minerals than for the wild and pic-
turesque beauties of its scenery; it comprises the greater
portion of the south-eastern mountain chain of Ireland,
composed of formations of granite, mica slate, quartz
rock, clay-slate, grauwacke, trap, and porphyry. Nearly
the whole of the most elevated and wildest part of the
mountain range, in a line from north-east to south-west,
is composed of granite, which supports, in geological
position, all the other beds, and occupies a tract which,
to the north of Lugnaquilla, is about seven miles in
breadth; but to the south-west of it, where it descends
towards the plains of Carlow, it is greatly expanded.
The granite is in general remarkably pure. The size of
the grain varies much; some of the largest and most
beautifully grained is found at the Scalp and in Glen-
cree; the finest-grained, at the northern foot of Cadeen,
in the glen of Imale. It is sometimes porphyritic, as
in Glenismaule, Glencree, and the head of the waterfall
is Glenmacanass. Numerous other minerals are found
imbedded in the granite, and in the veins of quartz that
sometimes traverse it, but so small in quantity as to be
considered merely adventitious. The mica slate occurs
in direct contact with the granite range on each side,
and is found in an uninterrupted range along its eastern
border from Shillelagh, by Glenmalur, Glendalough,
and Luggelaw, to the Scalp, where it is seen distinctly
resting on the granite, as in many other places. It is
usually fantastically contorted, on a small scale, and of
a dark grey hue; and consists of alternate layers of
quartz and mica of various thickness: in some places
strata of quartz and of granite, and irregular masses of the
latter are imbedded in it. In the lower part of Glen-
macanass it contains a bed of talc slate, easily worked
with the chisel, and hardening in the fire; which quali-
ties fit it for chimney-pieces, hearth-stones, grave-
stones, and troughs. Lugnaquilla, though composed
chiefly of granite, is capped with mica slate, with some
alternating strata of granite. On the western side of
the granite range is a similarly incumbent series of
mica slate strata, extending no farther south than Bal-
tinglass; nor is it so regular and continuous in its range
from the point where it enters from the county of
Dublin, north-east of Blessington. Although the glen
of Imale is entirely based on granite, this slate is seen
forming the summits of many of the high surrounding