Youghal

YOUGHAL (pronounced Yawl), a seaport and watering place of co. Cork, Ireland, on the west side of the Blackwater estuary, and on the Cork and Youghal branch of the Great Southern railway, m. E. of Cork. Pop. (1926) hal was a settlement of the Northmen in the 9th century, and was incorporated by King John in 1209. The Franciscan monastery, founded at Youghal by FitzGerald in 1224, was the earliest house of that order in Ireland. Sir Roger Mortimer landed at Youghal in 1317. The town was plundered by the earl of Desmond in 1579. In 1641 it was garrisoned and defended by the earl of Cork. Sir Walter Raleigh was mayor of Youghal in 1588-89, and is said to have first cultivated the potato here.

YOUNG, ARTHUR

(1741-182o), English writer on agri culture and social economy, second son of the Rev. Arthur Young, rector of Bradfield, in Suffolk, chaplain to Speaker Onslow, was born on Sept. II, 1741. After being at a school at Lavenham, he was in 1758 placed in a mercantile house at Lynn, but showed no taste for commercial pursuits. He published, when only 17, a pamphlet On the War in North America, and in 1761 went to London and started a periodical work, entitled The Universal Museum, which was dropped by the advice of Samuel Johnson. He also wrote four novels, and Reflections on the Present State of Affairs at Home and Abroad in 1759. After his father's death in 1759, his mother had given him the direction of the family estate at Bradfield Hall; but the property was small and encumbered with debt. From 1763 to 1766 he devoted himself to farming on his mother's property. In 1767 he undertook on his own account the management of a farm in Essex. He engaged in various experi ments, and embodied the results of them in A Course of Experi mental Agriculture (177o).

In 1768 he published the Farmer's Letters to the People of England, in 1771 the Farmer's Calendar, which went through a great number of editions, and in 1774 his Political Arithmetic, which was widely translated. About this time Young acted as parliamentary reporter for the Morning Post. He made a tour in Ireland in 1776, publishing his Tour in Ireland in 1780. In 1784 he began the publication of the Annals of Agriculture, which was continued for 45 volumes. This work had many contributors, among whom was George III., writing under the nom de plume of "Ralph Robinson." Young's first visit to France was made in 1787. Traversing that country in every direction just before and during the first movements of the Revolution, he has given valu able notices of the condition of the people and the conduct of public affairs at that critical juncture. The famous book Travels in France appeared in 2 vols. in 1792; it is an historical document of the first importance on the condition of the French provinces on the eve of the Revolution.

On his return home he was appointed secretary of the Board of Agriculture, then (1793) just formed under the presidency of Sir John Sinclair. In this capacity he gave most valuable assist ance in the collection and preparation of agricultural surveys of the English counties. His sight, however, failed, and in 1811 he had an operation for cataract, which proved unsuccessful. He died on April 20, 1820. He left an autobiography in ms., which was edited (1898) by Miss M. Betham-Edwards.