silt, deposited by the sea, which seems to partake of the qualities of the upper stratum; for this land can be injured by no depth of ploughing. In the counties of Limerick and Tipperary there is another kind of rich land, consisting of a dark, friable, dry, sandy loam, which if preserved in a clean state, would throw out corn for several years in succession. It is equally well adapted to grazing and tillage, and I will venture to say, seldom experiences a season too wet, or a summer too dry. The richness of the land, in some of the vales, may be accounted for by the deposition of soil carried thither from the upper grounds by the rains. The subsoil is calcareous, so that the very richest manure is thus spread over the land below, without subjecting the farmer to any labour. In Ireland there is not much land sufficiently light, though abundance of it is luxuriant enough, to be what is known in England under the name of " turnip lands." A vein of it, however, may be seen partly in Tipperary, and partly in the King's County, west of Roscrea, where I found turnips universally growing, though the soil is much inferior to that of our best turnip land. In many of the mountains I have observed that the calcareous soil does not extend to the top, though the summits of some produce rich clover. It is found also in patches on the mountains. Such spots afford great room for improvement. One of the most remarkable divisions of soil is that formed by the Barrow. To the west of that river limestone is met with in abundance, while it is no where to be found throughout the counties of Wexford and Wicklow. The best limestone in Ireland is obtained in the neighbourhood of Carlow, at least such is the general opinion; but it is not improbable, that if some of the marbles were analyzed, they would prove to be not in the least inferior to it. On the other hand, in the county of Waterford, there is no limestone east of the Blackwater; so that there is a border of country, extending from Dublin, through Wicklow, Wexford, and Waterford, entirely without it. Land, with a calcareous substratum, is by no means adapted in all cases to tillage, and Mr. Tighe's remarks on this subject, in regard to Kilkenny, may be applied to a great part of Ireland. "The ground that skirts the western bank of the Nore, below Kilkenny," says this sagacious observer, "is of a poor quality, consisting of a hungry, clayey loam, lying immediately over a bed of limestone. In general the nearer the limestone comes to the surface the poorer the soil; but this bank of the river, as well as the opposite, seems admirably calculated by nature to form the best kind of sheep-walks; where they are permitted, they produce close and green herbage, are extremely dry, and tend by nature to produce white clover and wild burnet; but give miserable crops of corn. Independently of the caucasses, the richest soil in Ireland is to be found in the counties of Tipperary, Limerick, Roscommon, Longford, and Meath. In Longford * Survey of Kilkenny, p. 19. there is a farm called Granard Kill, which produced eight crops of potatoes without manure. Some parts of the county of Cork are uncommonly fertile,* and upon the whole, Ireland may be considered as affording land of an excellent quality, though I am by no means prepared to go the length of many writers, who assert, that it is decidedly acre for acre richer than England. The finer lands of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, the rich lands in the south of Yorkshire, and those in the north of Nottinghamshire, are so seldom visited, that they are less known than many other parts of England; it is thence concluded, that the latter, in comparison with Ireland, is a desert. But such an opinion can be formed only by those who judge merely from what they may observe in travelling from London to Holyhead, and who have overlooked some of the richest lands in the island. If in Ireland there be no such uncultivated wastes as the heaths between Barton Mills and Swaffham, the balance is at any rate made up by the hilly tracts I have passed over in the Rosses in Donegal, and the Gowl Mountains in the county of Cork; the comparison, could it be fairly made, would be of little importance; but it is as impossible as to ascertain the quantity of water in the German or Irish Ocean. The quality of the soil on one farm may be compared with that of another, or a sandy desert with the corn fields of Flanders; but to determine the proportionate fertility of England and Ireland, in a satisfactory manner, is beyond the reach of calculation. In the latter, barren mountains abound, and many of them are incapable of culture or of being rendered productive; there are similar mountains in England; but even of the Irish mountains, which are tenanted and divided, a large proportion produces very little; whole counties are nearly in the same condition, which makes a great deduction from the general sum of fertility. There are also large masses of slaty hills, covered with moor-grass and heath, which certainly exhibit strong proofs of neglected tillage. * The Rev. Mr. Townsend, in his Survey of Cork, 1810, has noticed the division of the limestone districts, by the rivers in that county. "Here," says he, "as well as in some parts of the county of Kerry, rivers often mark the limits of the limestone tract. The Blackwater, in its course from Millstreet to Fermoy, runs at the south side of the limestone, for the far greater part of the way between Castlemore and Cork, a distance of about eleven miles, the course of the limestone is distinctly marked, 'first by the river Bride, and after its junction with the Lee, by the latter river. During this space, the limestone invariably adheres to one side of the channel, which it follows through all its windings, without once crossing it. The same circumstance is observable in the river Kenmare." p. 18. It is rather curious, that in the county of Waterford the Blackwater is the northern boundary of the limestone country, which still lies to the west of that river. CHAPTER IV. BOGS. MORASSES, fens, bogs, and mosses of different kinds, are every where abundant on the earth; but particularly in the northern parts of Europe. In Asia and Africa they are less numerous, but in America there are a great many, and some have thence been inclined to believe that it was peopled at a much later period. In the Netherlands, turf mosses are very common, and the Pontine marshes, on the western coast of Italy, twenty-five miles in length, and nearly half as many in breadth, the draining of which was attempted and partly performed some ages ago, but abandoned after large sums of money had been expended upon them in vain.* In Norway, marshes extend between the mountains, and in some places render the roads exceedingly dangerous. Pontoppidan speaks of one at Lessoe, through which it has been found necessary to construct a wooden road some miles in length, where a horse, if he make a false step in passing along, instantly sinks in the mud, and is inevitably lost. On a marsh called Sævenhæz, near the town of Raab, in Hungary, a solid crust, about a mile in length, richly clothed with grass, and on which cattle feed, has been formed by nature. The celebrated Thamas Kouli Khan marched his whole army through a morass in the Persian province of Chorazan, * It would appear that these marshes, after having been drained, became again filled with water in the course of years. They are mentioned by Pliny, lib. iii. chap. 5; Lucan, lib. iii. 85; Martial, lib. x. ep. 74, and lib. xiii. ep. 112. Juvenal, sat. iii. 307, speaks of them as infested by robbers. The famous Via Appia, begun by Appius Claudius the censor, in the year of Rome, 441. Liv. ix. 29. Diod. Sic..xx. 36, called by Statius, Silv. ii. 2. 12, REGINA VIARUM, passed through them. They were drained by the Consul Cethegus, Livy xliii. and Julius Cæsar intended to drain them, but he left the execution of the work to Augustus, who undertook and completed it. Between Forum Appii, a small town built on this road, spoken of in the Acts, ch. xxviii. v. 15. and Terracina, there was close to the road a canal, extending through the marshes, on which boats for conveying passengers were drawn by a mule; but chiefly in the night-time, Strab. Geog. lib. v. edit. Almel. vol. i. p. 233. Horace used this conveyance on his journey from Rome to Brundusium, Sat. i. 5. 9-25. These marshes are said to have been drained at a later period by Theodoric, king of the Goths. Cluverii Geograph. Amst. 1697, 4to, p. 64. "Ces marais sont à 25 milles, ou environ, au sud-est de Rome, et ont environ 25 milles de long, sur une largeure moins étendue. Ils causent tout le mauvais air de la Campagne de Rome." Fresnoy, Méthode pour étudier la Géographie, tom. vi. p. 364. "Pius VI." (Braschi) whose pontificate began in 1775, "converted, at a great expence, and with indefatigable perseverance, a very considerable part of these pernicious marshes into pasturage, corn fields, and rice plantations. He made a canal twenty miles in length, which conveys the once stagnant waters into the sea; and he intersected it with many lesser channels, which direct them so as to fertilize the fields which they once rendered useless and pestilential." A Description of Lalium &c. 1805, p. 135. + Norges Naturlige Historie Kiobenhavn, 1752, 4to, p. 64. + System einer Allgemeinen Hydrographie des Erdbodens, von J. W. Otto. Berlin, 1800, p. 281. but with the loss of many of his men and horses, which sunk and were buried in the mud.* Some districts in Europe, before their inhabitants were acquainted with the benefits of civilization, seem to have been in many parts covered by water, though at present little or no vestige of it remains,+ As the arts began to be cultivated, men abandoned their savage mode of life for the pursuits of agriculture, and while governments acquired a more settled form, land rose to a higher value, and a greater degree of labour was employed in rendering it productive. Increased population called for new means of subsistence; ingenuity, therefore, was exerted to convert unprofitable marshes into land fit for tillage, and thus, in the common course of things, the whole surface of the earth assumed a new and improved appearance. Britain, in the time of the Romans, was covered with fens and marshes, into which the natives were accustomed to retire when pursued by their enemies, as we learn from Cæsar and other ancient authors. Great part of those districts which now form the territory of Holland, were morasses, frequented by numerous flocks of wild geese, the feathers of which were so highly esteemed, on account of their softness, that they were carried to Rome, and employed in making pillows and beds. That part of the Duchy of Holstein, called Ditmarsh, seems once to have been in a similar condition; but it now consists of land exceedingly fertile, which not only produces luxuriant grass, but excellent crops of corn. All the fields are separated by deep ditches, which convey their superabundant waters into the sea; *Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, tom iv. p. 308. + Many of those extensive plains in Russia, called Steppes, but particularly those in the northern parts of the empire, consist chiefly of impassable bogs and morasses. Storch's Hist. Stat. Gemälde des Russischen Reichs. Riga, 1797, vol. i. p. 23. Ab his cognoscit non longe ab eo loco oppidum Cassivelauni abesse silvis paludibusque munitum, quo satis magnus hominum pecorisque numerus convenerit. Cæsar de Bello Gall. lib. v. cap. 16, edit. Oxon. 1800, 8vo, p. 97. Dion says that the Britons, when pursued, took shelter in marshes, and remained there several days, immersed up to the neck in mud. Ες τε γὰρ τὰ ἔλη καταδυόμενοι καρτερῶσιν ἐπι πολλὰς ἡμέρας, τὴν κεφαλὴν μávov w xv.-Herodian, speaking of the expedition of Severus into Britain, says, Máxira de yeQupais διαλαμβάνειν ἐπειρᾶτο τὰ ἐλώθη χωρία ὡς ἂν ἐπ ̓ ἀσφαλῶς βαίνοντες οι τρατιῶται ξαδίως τε αυτα διατρέχοιεν και ἐπ' ὀχυρῶ βήματος ἑδραίως ἐδῶτες μαχοιντο, τὰ γαρ πλεισα της Βρετλανῶν χώρας ἐπικλυζόμενα ταῖς τὰ ὠκεαν συνεχῶς ἀμπώτισιν ἐλώδη γίνεται. οις ἔθος τοῖς μεν Βαρβάροις ἐννήχες θαι το καὶ διαθειν βρεχομενοις μέχρις ὀξὺος. γυμνοί yap ὄντες τὰ πλεισα τὸ σώματος της ιλύος καταφρονῶσι. Lib. iii. cap. 47, edit. Oxon. 1699, 8vo, p. 133. According to Pliny, the Roman Prefects stationed in that country, instead of keeping the soldiers to their duty, suffered them to go in pursuit of these birds, which they caught for the sake of their feathers. E. Germaniâ laudatissima. Candidi ibi, verum minores, ganzæ vocantur. Pretium plumæ eorum in libras denarii quini. Et inde crimina plerumque auxilium præfectis, à vigili statione ad hæc aucupia dimissis cohortibus totis. Eoque delicia processere, ut sine hoc stramento durare jam ne virorum quidem cervices possunt. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. x. cap. 22. Lugd. Bat. 1669, vol. i. p. 677. and they are secured from the inundations of the latter by dykes, constructed like those of Holland, and kept up at considerable expense. * Other instances might be given of the wonderful changes effected on the rude face of nature by industry, continued through ages; but it is needless to enlarge on them, as the immediate object of the present inquiry is, those bogs commonly called mosses, which supply an inflammable substance known under the name of turf or peat.+ In England a very mistaken notion prevails, that the bogs of Ireland are found only in low situations, and people in general have thence been led to compare them to the marshy fens of Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire, in which so much has been done during the course of the last thirty years. A strong desire, therefore, has been manifested to see the same improvement introduced into the sister kingdom, and these immense tracts, at present of little use, converted into productive land, adding to the national wealth and resources. The change, indeed, effected in some of the fenny parts of England has been astonishing; Mr. Young, speaking of one of them, that of Holdernesse, says, he was assured that it would not be too high a calculation to estimate the general gross produce at £5. an acre, amounting in the whole to £55,000. a year. "It has been done" continues he, "in thirty years, that is, since I was at Beverley in my northern tour. There has consequently been produced to the public, from a tract which was before the residence of * These marsh lands, however, are exceedingly unhealthy, as the dampness of the soil, and the thick heavy atmosphere, produce fevers and other diseases. See L. M. Medel's Indenlandske Reise igennem de betydeligste og skjonneste Egne af de Danske Provindser. Kiobenhavn, 1803. Andet Hefte, p. 63. + In England and Ireland it is generally called turf; in Scotland the upper crust only, which is covered with heath and cut from the surface, is called turf; the rest is called peat. A Germanwriter gives the following account of turf:-Turfa, Humus vegetabilis aquatica, LINN. 27. Humus limosa. Humus vegetabilis lutosa, WALLER. Humus uliginosa. Humus palustris. Torvena, LIBAVII. In German torf, turf; in Danish torv, and in French limon, tourbe, tourbe limoneuse, &c. is a pulverulent earth, mixed with plants and tender roots, which is dug up in mosses, and properly belongs to the vegetable kingdom. There is, however, another kind belonging to the mineral kingdom, called bitumenous turf, {Terra bituminosa, Turfa montana, Amphelitis, Pharmacitis, Bitumen terrâ mineralisatum, WALLER,) which consists of earth mixed with coarse rock-oil, or tar, and which burns in the fire with a strong smell; of this kind is that dug up in Dauphigny and in Switzerland. Turf taken from a bottom impregnated with salt, and which contains sulphur or vitriol, has a disagreeable smell, and is prejudicial to the health. In the island of Zeland there is a kind which makes the faces of those who are in the room where it is burning as pale as death; and if they sit long by it, they are in danger of fainting; it also causes vessels to appear white in the inside. Turf taken from mosses which contain no mineral substances, does not produce such pernicious effects. The matter of turf is very different according to the difference of depth. In the province of Groningen it is light and spongy at the surface, but a little deeper it becomes somewhat better, and at the bottom is firm and black. Baron Von Meidinger, in his Treatise on Turf, makes two kinds of it, the first of which he calls Drag torf or Darie torf; the other, which is of a worse quality, he names Hage torf, Turf is discovered either by a borer or by the plants growing over it. Bergmänisches Worlerbuch, Chemnitz, 1778, p. 565. |