es or less of fairly good land, and then the Western
peasant cultivator becomes a many-sided man by dint of buying and
selling stock--that is, he acquires the sort of intelligence possessed
by a smart huckster. This is held to be cleverness in these parts, and
undoubtedly gives its possessor a greater "faculty of expansion" than
the career of an Essex or Wessex ploughman or carter. But what is
peculiarly pertinent to the burning question of peasant cultivators
and proprietors is the tendency, perpetually visible in the Western
Irishman, to fly off at a tangent from agriculture to grazing.
According to an ancient and indurated belief in all this section of
the country, animals ought to get fat on the pasture provided by
nature. I am told that thirty years ago there was not a plough in
existence from Westport to Dhulough, and that the turnip was an
unknown vegetable in Connemara. The notion of growing turnips and
mangolds in a country made for root crops was at first not well
received. "Bastes" had done hitherto on the rough mountain pasture
"well enough;" which signified that no properly fatted animal had ever
been seen around the Twelve Pins.

Now that the Connemara man here and there has been taught to grow root
crops for cattle he begins to yield, and feeds his beasts, sometimes,
on roots instead of sedge. Thus far he has become a cultivator; but I
have my doubts whether the hard work of tillage suits him well. To get
good crops off a little farm is an undertaking which requires
"sticking to work." It is not so pleasant by a great deal as looking
at cattle and taking them to market. Hence the tilled part of an Irish
farm in the West nearly always bears a very small proportion to that
under pasture. It is only quite recently that artificial feeding for
cattle has been resorted to, and compelled the farmer to grow root
crops. Perhaps, in the present condition of the market for beasts and
grain the nimble-minded Celt is hitting the right nail on the head,
and cattle and dairy farms are the future of the agriculturist, who
will compete against American meat with English produce fed upon
English grass and roots, and upon maize imported from the New World. I
prefer, however, to leave this possibility for the discussion of Mr.
Caird and Mr. Clare Read, and to confine myself to the fact that the
Western cultivator is far less a farmer than a cattle-jobber or
gambler in four-legged stock.

The poor inhabitants of the islands