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and is of greater extent than any of the preceding
classes, occupying both bog and mountain, and even
several tracts of elevated land, which, though improved
by culture, still exhibit sufficient traces of their origin:
though inferior in fertility, some portions of this class
may be rendered productive of good crops of grass,
oats, and potatoes; but the most elevated portions can
never afford any thing better than coarse summer pas-
turage. Sands occur only on the sea-shore, and are most
extensive in the bays of Courtmasherry, Bantry, Kin-
sale, Clonakilty, and Ross.
The tillage, except on the demesnes of resident gen-
tlemen, presents rather unfavourable features, owing in
a great measure to the want of skill and adequate capi-
tal, the too minute subdivision of farms, and the super-
abundant population of the arable districts. The crop
of the greatest importance, and cultivated with the
greatest care, is that of potatoes, which constitute the
staple food of the small farmers and the labourers: it
is succeeded in the more fertile districts by wheat, for
which the ground is not unfrequently manured with
lime, and this is followed by one or two crops of oats.
The ground is rarely levelled, properly cleared, or sown
with artificial grasses, except by a few of the more opu-
lent farmers on calcareous soils in the west and south
parts of the county; barley and oats are more generally
cultivated. The land held by the small farmers, or
cottiers, presents an impoverished appearance, and is
rarely left to recruit its productive powers by means of
rest, until first exhausted by over-cropping. The cabins
occupied by this class of tenants are for the most part
of a wretched description. A considerable portion of
the northern part of the county is appropriated to dairy
farms, and is but thinly inhabited; but the land there is
in good condition, and the farm-houses more comforta-
ble than in the tillage districts. Some of the principal
landowners have corrected the abuses of the cottier
system, and adopted for the improvement of their es-
tates, and the amelioration of their tenantry, the prac-
tice of letting sufficiently large farms to occupying
and working tenants, and providing them with com-
fortable dwelling-houses and farm-offices suitable to
the extent of land and the condition of the holder.
The substances generally employed as manure are, com-
mon dung, lime, earth collected from the ditches, sea-
sand, and sea-weed. As the beds of limestone are situ-
ated in the northern and eastern parts of the county,
the farmers in the south-west are precluded from using
this material, but find an abundant substitute in the
calcareous sea-sand driven upon the shore, which is
partly composed of pulverised marine shells in various
proportions, and of which the coral sand of Bantry
bay, being wholly calcareous, is most esteemed: some
kinds of a red colour are also in great esteem; those
of a dark blue colour seem to be composed chiefly of
the fragments of muscle shells. Spade labour is gene-
rally preferred to the use of the plough, of which the
prevailing kind is of very rude construction, having
short and thick handles, a low beam, and the coulter
and sock placed obliquely, so that in working, the mould-
board is raised out of the ground, the Scotch swing
plough has been introduced by the gentry and wealthy
farmers in the neighbourhood of Cork and other places.
Formerly hay and corn were brought from the fields
on slide cars or crooks, both of which are still used in
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the west; but the general improvement of the roads
has introduced the wheel car, which, however, is of very
rude construction, consisting of little more than a pair
of shafts connected by a few cross bars, and resting
upon a wooden axletree fixed into small solid wheels of
ash plank, and turning with them; in all the low dis-
tricts the cart, or “butt,” has become general. The
fences contribute to the general naked appearance of
the surface, being commonly formed of banks of earth
dug from trenches on each side, and faced with sods or
stones; they are frequently planted with furze, and oc-
casionally with white thorn and forest trees. The cattle
of the south and south-west are small, seldom weighing
more than 3½ cwt.; formerly they were all black, but
at present the breed is mixed, and of various colours;
they generally yield abundance of milk. In the baro-
nies of Duhallow, and Orrery and Kilmore, forming the
north-western portion of the county, the Leicester
breed, or, as they are here commonly called, the Lime-
rick heifers, form the stock of some of the rich dairy
farms; lands of inferior quality are stocked with a
mixed breed of these and the old native black cattle.
Indeed the cattle of the great northern vale are altoge-
ther superior in size and form to those of the more
southern and western districts; and the same may be
observed of all other kinds of live stock. The Holder-
ness, Devon, Durham, and Ayrshire breeds have also
been partially introduced. There are no large flocks of
sheep, except in gentlemen’s demesnes; the Leicester is
the prevailing breed on good soils, and the common and
half-bred Irish on inferior soils. Horses, mostly black,
are, in the northern portion of the county, universally
employed by the common farmers: in other parts are
kept great numbers of mules of a small size, which are
occasionally employed in draught, but chiefly for back
loads; and being easily fed, very long lived, and able
to endure great fatigue, are well adapted to the purposes
of a poor peasantry in a rough country. Of the exten-
sive woods with which this county was once adorned,
numerous vestiges are found both above and beneath
the surface. Although now so denuded, the oak, birch,
alder, fir, and yew, and even the ash and poplar, appear
to be indigenous, and of shrubs and underwoods there
seems to have been a still greater variety. The former
growth of firs in this part of the island is also traced
by their existence in the bogs, in which they greatly
exceed in number all the rest. The mountain lands,
covered with little but heath and sedgy grass, form
extensive tracts of comparative waste: the bogs and
marshes are chiefly confined to these elevated regions,
being elsewhere of very small extent. The scar-
city and dearness of fuel are in many parts very disad-
vantageous; the maritime towns and the richer inha-
bitants generally obtain coal from England; while the
mass of the people are compelled to seek for peat, which
in many places has been exhausted; furze is often
planted to supply this grievous deficiency.
The crown lands of Pobble O’Keefe are in the centre
of a wild district on the confines of the counties of Limer-
ick, Kerry, and Cork, which, until within these few years,
had been neglected and deserted, and was nearly inac-
cessible for want of roads. They are estimated to con-
tain about 9000 statute acres of undulating hilly country,
the soil of which varies from a strong clay to a loamy
gravel and sand on the higher grounds, with tracts of