for want of hands to cut it and draw it is perfectly right in attributing a great home. How, then, this most formi. portion of the miserable condition of dable difficulty is to be provided for by the Irish people to this melancholy the advocates of consolidation of farms, system; we believe that it has led to they have never yet condescended to the crowding of the people on the soil inform us, and we confess that we are in numbers much too great, not by wholly unable to conjecture. Neither, any means for its capacity of producwith every respect for the writings of tion, but for its present productiveness, Mr. Young, can we at all see the force in numbers which would be perfectly of his reasoning, when he supports his insignificant, if even the improved statement, that large farmers contri- agricultural processes which are albute most to improvement, and that ready known were generally adopted, these improvements can only be carried but which, from the culpable neglect of out by large and opulent farmers, ask- improvement, from a perfect disregard ing us

of every opportunity, are, in many places greatly in excess.

This excess “ Where is the little farmer to be will of course in Ireland be much infound who will cover his whole farm

creased by the inadequacy of grain with marl at the rate of 100 or 150 tons who will drain all his land at

crops to take the place of the potato, per acre, the expense of £2 or £3 per acre, who

in supplying subsistence for the peowill pay a heavy price for the manure of

ple; it will make the present populatowns, and convey it thirty miles by land tion fully one third more redundant, carriage,” &c.

as compared with the provision that is

made for them. In time, we have no We cannot at all see why a man doubt whatsoever, but that the agriwith but ten acres of land should not culture of the country, stimulated by accomplish all these purposes of im- the present emergency, must improve; provement as effectually as a man with and we are also convinced that its imten hundred acres ; the difference is provement will be in some districts simply this, that it will cost the man much facilitated by reason of the rewho farms one hundred acres, one duction in our numbers which will be hundred times as much; it will re- occasioned by the emigration that is quire one hundred times a greater now forced upon amount of capital to cover with marl, the emigration that is forced upon or to draw manure, or to drain his for thankful

are for larger farm, than the small farmer will having any such outlet in this season require ; but why the small farmer, of affiction, we cannot look upon the a man with capital proportioned to stream of human beings that is now his farm, should not drain his ten flowing from our shores without feel. acres for £30, as well as the large ings of deep distress. The very last farmer will drain bis one thousand resource that a country should ever acres for £3000, we are wholly at adopt is that of emigration—the very a loss to conjecture.

There is no last mode of providing for a people is force whatsoever in the argument. by getting rid of them. Within our But even in Mr. M‘Culloch's own vo. shores they might have been the lumes we are furnished with most sources of our wealth and of our striking evidence of the great inexpe- strength; there lives not the man dience of large holdings, for, on look- whose labour, if well disciplined and ing over his separate notice of each of directed, would not produce more the English counties, we invariably than his own consumption, and the find that pauperism is uniformly great- common stock is so much impaired by er in these countries in which he tells every working man who is drawn from us that the farms are large, and vice it. We acknowledge that, circumversâ, that pauperism is less in these stanced as we now are, we have no counties where the holdings are small. alternative—the remedy is a desperate

We would not, however, be misun- one, but it must be endured. Great derstood. We are very far indeed has been the neglect, great is the refrom advocating the wretched system sponsibility falling on those who have of sub-division into acres, and half occasioned the need for it; but let us acres, which prevails in this country. resolve vigorously, and bestir ourWe are convinced that Mr. M‘Culloch selves actively, that the like reproach

say by

us,

as

we

may not befal us again. Meantime, the woe that is denounced against let us maintain the cause of the small those " who add field to field, until farmers; we would gladly see many, there be no place, that they may be very many large holdings scattered alone upon the earth." over the face of the country; we be. In treating thus of the resources of lieve that it is eminently for the inte- the kingdom in the important article rests of agriculture that there should of food, we have made no mention of be such, but let them not be to the ex- that portion of the supply which is declusion of the small holdings; let us rived from abroad this we may take have thousands and tens of thousands occasion to allude to when speaking of of the people of the United Kingdom the import trade of the country; it is enjoying their six, eight, ten, or sufficient to say at present, that up to twelve acres of land, as their capital this season of famine, all that we have may be suited to it; they have unan- in any year derived from abroad has swerable practical support in the great been wholly insignificant, when looked success of Belgium and the other con- upon as a means of providing for our tinental states where they have been people. The importation of grain in encouraged; they will cultivate more 1846 was very much above the average, closely, and more productively than and yet the whole amount, including the large farmer; they will add to the meal and flour, was only equal to five might of the empire, politically, so- millions and a-half of quarters of cially, and economically; they will go grain, or about a bushel and a half for far in preserving it from mendicancy, every inhabitant of the kingdom ; but, that most fruitful source of corruption as we have said, we may allude to this --and they will save the nation from subject briefly again.

LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS OF ARCADIA. CHAPTER V.-A GALLOP OVER THE

ARCADIAN MOUNTAINS. CHAPTER VI.-GREEK BRIGANDS “AT HOME"

162

AN IRISI ELECTION IN THE TIME OF THE FORTIES. BY WILLIAM CARLETON.

JAMES M'GLASHAN 21 D'OLIER-STREET.

WM. S. ORR, AND CO. 147 STRAND LONDON.

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So sung the minstrel of Erin, awaking thought that when nature is bursting with a master's hand the chords of that from her long sleep-when other counlyre, whose strains are now familiar as tries are smiling with promise, this joyhousehold words in every quarter of ous season can bring but little hope to us. the civilized world_fraught with the Yes-even in this glad and happy time, very soul of song—breathing an inspi. when the green corn is bursting from ration caught from the green hills of the earth, blessed with the sunshine Ireland. Alas! those beautiful stan. and the shower of spring—when holy zas were only too prophetic of the nature, with a lavish hand, is scatterfuture fate of our unhappy country. ing abroad her joyous gifts upon fertile 'Tis even so: in the darkest day of her lands, here it is only upon desolate long life of tribulation, when the hopes homesteads and barren fields that the of hearts that but a year ago throbbed light of her smile can fall now. Sweet with the wild pulses of life's prime, lie spring! the time of love—the time crushed and broken--when the thou. when in warm pulses the life blood sand fire-sides that were thronged then glows and dances—when youth and with careless and laughing faces, are beauty thrill with thy mysterious incold and cheerless now, their occu- fluence. Youth and beauty, what pants tossing on stormy seas—tired are ye now! The pride and the vigour wanderers in strange countries, seek- of lusty manhood are broken ; she ing the means of life they cannot find whose smile was his light of life, has at home, their thoughts still teeming faded like a dying flower; the joyous with the memories of better times melody that welled from the happy still turning towards the old country, heart is stilled by the wailings of grief where their fathers' ashes are, but over the unburied dead. Youth and which shall be a place of refuge no beauty! The wan mother strains to more for them ; or happier far, having her breast her helpless childfound in the shelter of the grave from

“ The babe to whom her breast yields no relief"their heavy labours an eternal rest. Alas for Ireland! her heart is heavy the fountain is dry. Alas for the sufferwith sorrow; and it is impossible to ings and the sorrows of our country! think of her melodies, which have But in the hour of her desolation she is ever been connected with her joys or tuneful still; and well indeed may they her griefs, without these mournful who have rivetted those indissoluble reflections arising - reflections ren- bonds which have linked our destiny to dered still more melancholy by the theirs-well may they, moved to pity

'Specimens of the Early Native Poetry of Ireland, in English Metrical Translations, by various hands ; with Historical and Biographical Notices, by Henry R. Montgomery, &c. &c. Dublin : James M'Glashan. 1847.

Vol. XXX.–No. 176.

K