Agriculture and Stock Raising.— The chief occupation is agriculture. The richness of the soil, its lightness that makes tillage easy, the large percentage of arable land, the amount of rainfall and the mildness of the climate all com bine to make Ireland an agricultural country. Despite the great extent of moorland-wastes and the large amount of bog-land, few countries raise, in proportion to the area, such a large amount of food products year after year. But with natural advantages above the average, agri culture as a system has not progressed as in many other countries. The holdings, or farms, originally too small to be occupied by farmers of capital and enterprise, were in many cases subdivided until they were reduced to the smallest patches, on the produce of which a family could barely sub sist. One result of this poor policy was that the holders were obliged to raise as much as possible each year, for immediate use, without regard to the ultimate effect of this mode of farming upon the land. Competent authorities say that this. over-cropping has had a most deleterious effect upon the land. Yet by rota tion of crops and the use of fertilizers the soil has been restored to a considerable extent. Statistics show that a change in the kind of crops has been gradually taking place; a de crease in the acreage under cereals and green crops and an increase in the area under meadow and clover. The following figures show the distribution of the cultivated area, given in acres, for 1917: Corn crops, 1,774,227; green crops, 1,138,913; flax, 107,566; fruit, 17,024; hay, 2,532,723. Pasture lands amounted to 11, 500,000 acres. The value of food products im ported in 1914 was over $136,000,000. The prin cipal exports are live stock, bacon and hams, butter, poultry, eggs, potatoes, vegetables and flax, hides, skins, wool and feathers. Imports at Irish ports in 1915 were valued at $439,751, 580, an increase of $69,777,920 over the previous year; exports were $422,317,040, an increase of $35,000,000 over 1914. During 1915 Ireland ex ported 17,808 horses, 841,587 head of cattle, 489,657 sheep and 179,058 pigs.
The number of holdings recorded in Ireland for 1916 was 572,045, held by 560,313 occupiers; of these, 195,285 were in Ulster, 134,237 in Munster, 124,866 in Leinster and 117,657 in Connaught. Of holdings not exceeding one acre, there were 107,807; between one and five acres, 48,900; between 5 and 15 acres, 127,775; from 15 to 30 acres, 124,097; from 30 to 50 acres, 72,304; from 50 to 100 acres, 57,510; from 100 to 200 acres, 23,192; from 200 to 500 acres, 8,435; above 500 acres, 2,025. These statistics are more reliable than those published in former years, when a holding that extended into several townlands was returned as so many different properties, though being in only one.
The Land Act of 1870 greatly improved the conditions of tenure in Ireland. The chief aims of the act were to provide compensation to ten ants for arbitrary eviction, and especially for improvements effected by them on their hold ings in case of their being disturbed in their possession by the landlords, and to afford facil ities to tenants for the purchase of their hold ings. The act legalized what is called the Ulster tenant-right custom in all the districts in which it prevailed, and decreed the amount of com pensation to be awarded in absence of such cus tom. In 1881 it was supplemented by a more thorough and comprehensive measure. The ben efits conferred on Irish tenants by this act were briefly summarized under the terms °fair rent? "fixity of tenure? and °free sale? By the first of these every tenant who objected to his rent, or the rent the landlord wished to exact, was entitled to have a °fair rent)) fixed for him by a court. The rent was to remain unaltered for 15 years, at the end of which period it might be readjusted, and raised or lowered. By the principle of "fixity of tenure' the law recog nized that the tenant had a certain right in his holding in virtue of which he was not to be arbi trarily removed from it without compensation, and which enabled him on leaving his farm to obtain the best price he could for yielding up his possession. The °free sale)) of this right of ten ancy was restricted only in so far as that it must be to one person only (except under agree ment with the landlord) that the landlord might object on sufficient grounds to the person pur chasing and that he also had the right of pre emption. At the expiration of the 15 years the landlord might resume possession of the holdilig on paying the tenant compensation for iin provements effected by him, and also paying him the value of his tenant-right, both being deter mined by the court should the parties be unable to agree. A tenant who sold his tenant-right on
quitting his holding was not to be entitled to compensation for disturbance, or if he had re ceived compensation he was not entitled at that time to sell his tenancy. The act also em powered the land commission to advance loans to tenants not exceeding three-fourths of the value of their holdings, to enable them to be come proprietors, and such loans were repay able by an annual payment of 5 per cent for 35 years. Provision was also made for assisting emigration. A tenant whose holding, or the aggregate of whose holdings, were , valued at not less than $733.50, was entitled by writing to contract himself out of any of the provi sions of this act, or of the act of 1870. Another act passed in 1885 extended the privileges con ferred by the act of 1881, the Imperial govern ment advancing $50,000,000 for land purchases. Another act passed in 1896 went farther in the same direction. The Purchase of Land (Ire land) Act of 1891 supplied the Land Commis sion with further funds for advances to tenants to enable them to purchase their holdings. But the Land Purchase Act of 14 Aug. 1903, whereby the tenants may buy the farms and become in dependent of the landlords, was a great begin ning toward a readjustment of agricultural con ditions. The new law provided that the actual tenants or persons, or persons who had been tenants within 25 years, could purchase all the land they occupied or desired at prices varying according to the condition of the property, to be paid for upon the installment plan, the seller accepting a mortgage for a term of years, the government guaranteeing the payment at the ruling rate of interest. Further improvements were introduced under the Land Act of 1909, by which the Congested Districts Board was created, and by the Labored (Ireland) Act of 1906 for the erection of laborers' cottages, for which purpose $22,934,105 had been advanced up to 31 March 1917, while the total amount advanced for land purchase up to that period stood at $492,658,055, of which $8,385,365 has been paid back by purchasers, leaving a sum of $484,272,690 Stock-raising has increased remarkably dur ing recent years, and Ireland is to-day one of the best-supplied countries for its size in Europe in regard to live stock. In 1900 there were 491,156 • horses 4,608,550 head of cattle, 4,386, 876 sheep, and 1,268,521 pigs. During the first war year Ireland exported 30,940 horses to Great Britain, as against 8,662 which came from the rest of the world; 945,410 head of cattle, as against 2,234 from elsewhere; 539,107 sheep, 147,924 pigs, 48,457 tons of bacon and over 6,000 tons of hams. Throughout the war Ireland contributed heavily in food stuffs to Great Britain and her allies. In spite of this enormous drain on her live stock, Ire land possessed, in 1917, namely 600,000 horses, 24,746 mules and jennets, 228,628 asses, 4,907, 466 cattle, 3,744,453 sheep, 947,572 pigs, 268,853 goats and over 22,000,000 poultry. England is the principal market for the cattle raised in Ireland. The breeds of horses vary with the locality; ponies are numerous in Connaught; hunters in the north of Leinster; and draught horses in nearly all the counties on the eastern coast. The reports of the Irish Agricultural Organization Society indicate that the agri cultural co-operative movement is growing steadily and rendering valuable service. At the end of 1916 there were 1,040 co-operative farmers' societies, comprising creameries, credit banks, poultry keepers' societies, etc., with a membership of over 100,000 and a business turn over exceeding $30,000,000. The society has spent over $500,000 of private contributions in spreading co-operative organization among Irish farmers. The Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction supplies traveling lec turers who give instruction in all branches of agriculture, dairying, bee-keeping and stock raising. Besides numerous agricultural col leges and schools there are three agricultural stations for farm apprentices, while special classes are held in the winter months on rural domestic economy. Consult 'Ireland, Industrial and Agricultural) (Department of Agriculture and Technical- Instruction for Ireland) ; SmithGordon and Staples, 'Rural Reconstruction in Ireland) (London 1918).