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LEINSTER 63
Leinster are far less known to Englishmen than the
barren cliffs of Achill. Yet if you go to Inistiogue,
or any similar place in Leinster, you will begin to
realize why it is that in Leinster only of the provinces
does the population increase in these days.
There, under the new conditions of tenure, the
farmer begins to invest freely, his money and his
labour, upon soil that can repay exertion, and under
a climate that has none of Ulster's harshness. In
Wexford, where most of the Irish tobacco was grown
till the growing of it was prohibited by an amazing
Act of Parliament some seventy years ago, the plant
took so kindly to the soil that it perpetuated itself
without cultivation: and when (after infinite solicitation
and manoeuvring) leave was given us to revive this
industry, the distinctive variety was recovered from
these casual plants, and has been cultivated among
other species in Colonel Edwards's farm at Navan.
Now a soil and a climate in which tobacco will re-
produce itself in the wild state is a rare combination
so far north, and Wexford men are trying to utilize
its advantages.
In Carlow and Kilkenny one sees prosperity too
on every side, while Louth disputes the palm with
Wexford. Only on the richest land of all, through
Meath into Kildare, is there the lamentable spectacle
of depopulation — a rich wilderness. Yet even there