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[Post Famine Ireland- Social Structure
Ireland as it
Really Was.
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© 2006 by Desmond Keenan. Book available from Xlibris.com and Amazon.com]
THE ECONOMY I: AGRICULTURE
Chapter Summary. This chapter deals with all the major aspects of the Irish
economy with regard to primary production from the soils, rivers, and seas, both
pastoral and tillage. Related questions such as the Co-operative Movement, the
tenure of land, the improvement of land largely through drainage, and the Land
Acts which transferred the holding of land are described. The hyperlinks
immediately below are to the most important headings.
Livestock
The Co-operative Movement
Tillage and Crops
Horticulture
Fisheries
Forestry
Leases and Tenancies
Land Acts
Drainage
Other Aspects
====================================================
Agriculture
Overview of
the Period
Agriculture was developing rapidly
in Ireland as in the rest of the United Kingdom. So snapshots, as it were, of
its state at any given time are very interesting. Comparing the second half of
the nineteenth century with the first half, by 1850 the use of oxen for
ploughing had died out. So too had the rundale-runrig system of ploughing
associated with the big wooden plough. Fields were ploughed flat, and under-soil
drainage was installed. For field cultivation, the use of the spade-shovel for
anything other than gardens had ceased. There were no longer huge armies of
cheap labourers to dig fields, or use scythes. Indeed farm labour became scarce
in some areas. Smaller lighter iron ploughs drawn by horses and drill
cultivation with ploughs and hoes became the norm. Artificial fertilisers became
general, and the use of organic farm manure was at times abandoned. By
mid-century, the endless experiments with crossing and breeding had resulted in
the adoption of a limited number of breeds of cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, and
poultry. Virtually the whole cattle industry could be summed up in one word,
‘shorthorn’. As roads and railways reached the furthest parts almost all farming
became market-orientated. Subsistence agriculture ceased, and even the smallest
farmer tried to produce something he could sell.
When discussing Irish agriculture it
is necessary to remember that the gentlemen farmers and the strong farmers many
of them Protestants, produced the vast bulk of agricultural produce which was
sold commercially, even though by 1900 almost all the small farmers were
producing some output for the market. However this might be limited to a calf, a
pig, or a couple of sheep a year. A rough calculation shows that 300,000 farmers
with an average farm size of 15 acres could cultivate 4.5 million acres. 120,000
farmers with an average farm size of 65 acres could cultivate 7.8 million acres,
while 35,000 farmers with an average farm size of 150 acres would cultivate 5.25
million acres. The latter two combined would cultivate about 13 million acres or
three times as much as the small farmers (See table of farm sizes in Foreman,
Ireland, 183; with regard to numbers engaged in farming two thirds
had under 30 acres). It must also be taken into account that the smaller the
farm the less there is left for marketing after consumption on the farm is taken
into account. Also, the small farmer normally had less machinery, less
fertiliser, poorer seed and livestock. Foreman’s table shows that the percentage
of holdings under 30 acres declined from over 90% before the Famine to 66% in
1901 and declined further to 55% in 1953-4.
The total superficial area
of Ireland was about 32,000 square miles or 20,327,947 acres of which 4,787,003
were bog, waste, barren mountain, waters and marsh. So approximately 15 million
acres were available for the various branches of agriculture.
For nearly twenty years after the
Famine agriculture was prosperous in the United Kingdom. The period from 1850 to
1874 was described as the ‘Golden Age’ of British farming (Briggs and Jordan,
Economic History of England, 323-8). It was also a period of great
agricultural prosperity in Ireland. Farm machinery became more complex,
resulting in the reaper-binder, the threshing mill, and eventually the tractor.
The introduction of a revolutionary device, the milk separator, along with
pasteurisation, was to revolutionise the whole dairy industry. Agriculture as
practised by the best farmers in the United Kingdom was probably the best in
Europe. Many Irish farmers were also improving their lands. But developments in
Ireland never reached the same extremes as in England, so it was less affected
by the ‘Great Depression’. Many of the progressive farmers were Protestants.
The Great Agricultural Depression is
regarded as lasting from 1874 to 1896. It commenced with a series of bad
harvests the worst of which was in 1879. Agricultural prices did not rise as a
result of the poor crops because alternative sources of wheat could be found
overseas at first particularly in
America. Then a
reliable refrigeration system for ships was devised, and mutton was found to
lend itself to being transported in a frozen state.
Australia shipped
its first refrigerated cargo in 1881 and New Zealand commenced exporting frozen
mutton in 1882. Vast quantities of wheat, frozen mutton, canned beef, and wool
flooded into the country. The large-scale transportation of fresh meat was not
feasible, and as fresh meat always tasted better than de-frozen meat the demand
for it remained fairly stable. Tillage for the production of cereals had been
encouraged by the Corn Laws, but as cereals now produced a smaller return than
beef, tillage steadily decreased to produce a new equilibrium. Dairy produce,
fruit and vegetables similarly could not be imported, so more were produced.
In Ireland the commercial
agricultural sector had not spread so far on to unsuitable soils, nor had there
been the same intensive inputs of expensive fertilisers and machinery. So Irish
commercial farmers were not hit as badly as English ones. The recession was
shallower and more short-lived. Nor were Irish rents so high. (The bad harvest
in 1879 was a godsend to agitators like Michael Davitt and Charles Stewart
Parnell but the agitation and terrorism of the Land League was of a political
nature and not directed either at intolerable conditions of tenure or major
losses of revenue. In any case their agitation was largely directed at small
tenant farmers in the west of Ireland, who produced very little for the market.)
Output in most of the branches of the livestock industry rose steadily, though
there was a decline in the number of milch (milk) cows after the Danes entered
the English butter market. The Danes raised their milk production per cow from
220 gallons in 1861 to 605 gallons per cow in 1914 and the butter fat content
from 68 lbs to 239 lbs, and most of the soil in Denmark was less fertile than in
Ireland (Farmers’ Gazette 27 Nov 1920). The development of Danish
agriculture took an entire generation but by 1910 could be regarded as having
caught up with Ireland. The English market was also growing so the volume of
Irish exports was not affected. Nevertheless the Danes increasingly set the
standards which Irish farmers had to match by the nineteen twenties.
Beginning around 1889 with the
start of the co-operative movement and the creamery movement there were signs of
a renewal of effort to develop Irish agriculture. Farmers began to measure
output, to measure the milk and count the eggs, and to get rid of
under-performing stock. This was given an added stimulus by the formation of a
Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in 1899. In the twentieth
century considerable progress was made, and there was even an increase in
tillage. During the First World War compulsory tillage brought a great increase
to the number of acres under the plough, and led to the general adoption of the
motor tractor.
Yet in 1904 the Farmers’ Gazette
noted that it was well known that agriculture was backward in some parts of
Ireland, and that there was a need to study the matter before making any
proposals for improvement.
The first obvious one was the number
of uneconomic holdings. Then there was the lack of working capital. There was
the lack of any inducement to invest in the improvement in land. The lack of
proper housing for the farmer or his stock; the steady increase in second class
pasture which would yield 4 times as much if it were tilled; the complacent
satisfaction with the present situation which relegates Ireland to the place of
a rancher to supply stock to English farmers to fatten; the prevalent practice
of selling the best stock and breeding from the worst; the almost complete loss
in some districts of the art of tillage; the want of regular systems of
rotations; the aversion to doing more than the minimum to clean the land; the
want of pride in the performance of farmwork and in the arrangements about the
farmstead; the tendency to put off ploughing, sowing, and harvesting to the last
moment; the small value that is put on time; the lack of recognition that the
best manure for land is labour. The Land Act (1903) would do away with the evils
of dual ownership, but will still leave a large number of uneconomic holdings,
which not even the abolition of the rent itself could make viable (Farmers’
Gazette 2 Jan. 1904). (Even half a century later many of these facts were
still noticeable, especially on tiny farms.)
Giving evidence to a Royal
Commission a witness said that according to his experience there had been no
improvement the cattle in Ireland in the past 50 years; no more butter was being
produced per cow, and no more beef; tillage had likewise been stagnant. In
England the case was quite different; land which fifty years ago carried 50 cows
now carried 90. Everywhere in Ireland we see farms going backward; being
over-run with gorse, ferns and weeds. The farmers say the grass is becoming more
sour and lacking in nutrition, with more acid plants taking over from the
nutritious grasses, and the quantity of hay cut per acre was falling off (Farmer’s
Gazette 15 March 1902).
Though speaking in general, it is
clear that the Gazette was referring chiefly to those farmers with second
grade land who devoted almost all of it to breeding cattle for sale. Nor as we
will see had there been any shortage of efforts over the previous fifty years to
improve agriculture. But the only tillage many farmers would have done was
planting a few acres of potatoes for home consumption every year. It seems
undeniable that in many parts of Ireland where stock raising was the principle
occupation that many farmers were just lazy, and lacked the stimulus of
competitive rents. The question must also be raised why specialist milk or beef
producers adopted the shorthorn. O’Grada gives figures which seem to show that
growth in productivity, though low by continental standards, was actually higher
than in Britain. But part of the high productivity gains on the Continent can be
explained by the low level from which they started. They just had to copy from
the British Isles (O’Grada, Economic History, 262).
It seems clear that overall the
value of the outputs of land relative to the costs of inputs from 1880 onwards
was steadily falling and continued to fall up the Second World War. One major
increase was the cost of farm labour. A clergyman wrote that a small glebe of
church land which brought a steady income in 1870 was bringing no income at all
by 1920 after the cost of the labour was subtracted. One result of this was the
steady decline of holdings under 30 acres though these still amounted to over
50% of all holdings in the 1950s (Freeman, Ireland, 183). This affected
the whole British Isles. After the Second World War it was realised that farming would have to
be subsidised if a strategic minimum of home-produced food was to be maintained.
[Top]
Livestock
Beef Cattle
The big development in the second
half of the nineteenth century was the large-scale adoption of the shorthorn as
the best breed of cattle for Ireland. Originally it was a dual purpose cow which
various breeders developed either for beef or milk production. Though a Dairy
shorthorn was also developed it was primarily a beef breed. By and large Irish
farmers, even in the great creamery areas, did not favour specialised
milk-breeds before the twentieth century. What they wanted was a cow which would
give a reasonable amount of milk for consumption or the production of butter
which then could be sold to the butcher for meat. No attempt was made to measure
how much milk a cow produced, the farmers just judging by their eyes the amount
of milk a given cow produced. Beef production was always the chief objective of
the farmer. Only in Meath and Westmeath where butter production was minimal was
the specialist beef breed, the Hereford preferred. The great advantage of the
Hereford was that it could be fattened solely on grass, whereas the shorthorn
and the Aberdeen Angus needed to be finished with feeding concentrates. The
Aberdeen-Angus, a Scottish breed, was regarded as doing well on poorer land, as
also did another Scottish breed, the Galloway, though the latter was purely a
beef breed. The shorthorn breed was not widely adopted until after the Famine.
Shortly after 1850 some improving farmers in Munster, where dairying was most
concentrated, began importing and developing the shorthorn.
When around 1900, the Department of
Agriculture began registering pure-bred bulls, shorthorns accounted for 65% of
the total. The next largest group was the Aberdeen Angus with 6%, followed by
the Hereford with 2½%. 26% of bulls registered were described as crossbred,
these being particularly numerous in Munster (Farmers’ Gazette 9 August
1902). The only native Irish breeds surviving were the Kerry and its relation
the Dexter, the latter being purely a beef breed, and together they amounted to
2½% of the Department’s approved bulls. The Irish brindled cow was common until
1850, after which a prejudice grew up against brindled animals. (A brindled
animal had dark streaks or flecks on a lighter background). The brindled cow
survived until 1900 in the poorer districts where they had a reputation of being
poor milkers, and the Congested Districts Board preferred the Aberdeen Angus and
the Galloway. However, crossing with shorthorns improved the breed until the
shorthorn fever swept the country (Farmers’ Gazette 26 May 1900). The
Dishley, or longhorn, so popular before the Famine disappeared.
The Department’s figures were of
course misleading for it was trying to spread the use of established breeds the
pedigree of whose bulls was established. The use of scrub bulls was widespread.
The quality of a beef bull was easier to determine than that of a dairy bull.
Both the breeder and the butcher could look at the bull, estimate its weight and
see how much flesh was on the bull in the appropriate places for the best cuts
of beef. The farmer could judge what weight the cattle had attained in the four
years of their lives. Oddly enough, the purebred animal had another advantage
when it was being bought at a fair, and that was that it looked better than the
progeny of the non-descript bull!
All over the United Kingdom,
following the repeal of the Corn Laws the price of cereals fell steadily, and
farmers turned to the production of cattle. One reason for this was to cut
costs. It was argued that farmers could have increased their profits if they had
retained more tillage which would have better maintained the fertility of the
soils in poorer areas. But against this it was said that increasingly farm
labourers were leaving the countryside for better wages and conditions in the
towns. Also it was maintained that the use of green crops gave a bad taste to
milk and made it unsaleable. The over-riding factor was however the
ever-increasing demand for fresh meat in English towns and cities. More and more
people were able to afford to buy meat, and to have meat at the principal meal
on more than one day of the week. Most parts of the animal could be sold for
cheaper food, including the liver, the kidneys, and
the fat which was rendered
down to make cooking fats such as lard or dripping.
Cattle were sent to British markets
from all over eastern and central Ireland, but the great centre of the beef
industry was the limestone plains covered with glacial drift in Meath, Kildare
and Westmeath. There is no obvious reason why this could not have been a great
dairying region for the soil was suitable for both.
Even west of the Shannon the
graziers formed the backbone of the economy. These graziers were farmers with
comparatively large grassland farms which in the early twentieth century were
targeted by agitators who wanted the big grazing farms confiscated by the
Government and split up into smaller tillage farms. Cattle-ranching was the only
successful business west of the Shannon. If the land was given over to tillage,
the landowners argued, returns would be lower, and consequently the tenants
would be unable to pay the existing rents (Weekly Irish Times 8 September
1906). In any case the land was often totally unsuitable for tillage. This was
often the case when there was a thin soil over thick infertile glacial drift
consisting largely of clay. The large farmers did not bother raising their own
stock preferring to buy year old calves from the small farmers, and these calves
were often the sole marketable product of the small farmers. (Soil apart, there
was not in the area a tradition of growing tillage crops for the market. When a
sugar beet factory was much later built in the region the beet had to be brought
from the tillage areas in the east of Ireland. Similarly, it always proved
impossible to get farmers outside Ulster to grow flax.)
The key figure in the success of the
beef industry was the cattle dealer. He usually had some land of his own on
which he could hold a stock of cattle. Like most other agricultural products
cattle become ready for the market at the same time, namely at the end of
summer, so a cattle dealer could hold over cattle to smooth out the supply to
the English markets. As the cattle were bought and sold at the autumn fairs,
sending them all directly to the English markets would cause a glut. The dealers
had contacts with farmers, with the banks, with the railway and steamship
companies and with the buyers at English fairs who were buying for the
slaughterhouses. It was their organisation which made the beef industry
profitable. The cattle from the less rich grasslands could not be sent directly
to the butchers. The animals often had to finished off by fatteners who either
had very good land or else stall-fed the cattle. Most of the cattle were
shorthorns, except as noted above, Herefords in the
Midlands. By the
year 1900 many small farmers were using an Aberdeen Angus bull on small local
cattle which produced a small animal which was popular with butchers. As with
sheep and pigs, smaller and leaner animals were now being sought by the
butchers. The whole tendency was away from enormous fat animals towards smaller
animals with less fat. The drawback of this cross was that the cows were poor
milkers (Farmers’ Gazette 9 June 1900).
The relative prosperity of much of
Ireland, and of Connaught in particular, depended on the railways. Though the
Grand and Royal Canals had played some part in opening up central Ireland to
trade the Midland Great Western Railway had lines connecting Dublin with five
west coast ports, Galway, Clifden, Westport, Killala, and Sligo, each branch
having small spur-lines leading off it. Most places were within 20 miles of a
railway so cattle did not loose much weight while being herded on foot to the
railway. The railway companies and the ports made provision for the transfer of
the cattle from the railway trucks on to the cattleboats and off again on the
other side. The great port for the export of live cattle was Dublin, while
Birkenhead in Cheshire, on the opposite side of the Mersey from Liverpool was
the great importation port. In the course of time the three largest railways in
Ireland were connected to the docks at the North Wall in Dublin. Birkenhead was
similarly linked to the major British railways. Over 40% of the live cattle
trade passed through the North Wall reflecting the great concentration of beef
cattle in the Midlands.
The time for shipping the cattle
depended on the times of the English fairs. The Government in 1895 issued an
Order, the Animals (Transit and General) (Ireland) Order 1895, which gave
detailed instructions regarding what it required. In accordance with this Order,
inspectors made frequent checks on ports and railway yards to see the
instructions were complied with; the cattleboats, stock-yards and lairs were
also frequently inspected. A lair was an enclosed space close to a railway where
cattle could be let out of the trucks, be given food and water, and be rested.
Inspectors made frequent checks on ports and railway yards to see they were
complied with (County Councils Gazette 4 May 1900).
In 1912 the English Board of
Agriculture made more rules regarding the transport of live animals. After
coming off the cattle boats the cattle were to be held for
twelve hours in the lairs for rest, feeding, watering and inspection. This was
not popular with the cattle dealers because it upset long-standing arrangements
which inter-connected the Irish, English, and Scottish fairs. One reason for
this new order was an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Ireland.
Despite these inspections the
horrors of the live cattle trade between Ireland and Britain in 1924 were
described. Many cattle died or were slaughtered on board; cattle landed with
their sides ripped by the horns of other animals; stick marks caused by the use
of sticks by Irish drovers - really a bad habit rather than conscious cruelty.
The losses due to injuries caused on transit amounted to £1 million a year (Weekly
Northern Whig 9 February 1924).
With regard to exports, the cattle
industry was second only to the linen industry in value, with live cattle
exports accounting for about two thirds and dairy products one third. The
numbers of cattle being exported rose from around 195,000 in the immediate
post-Famine period to around 835,000 before the First World War. Figures given
by Burke are broadly comparable, as are those given in the Northern Whig
in 1924, though it is clear there are differences in accounting (Lyons,
Ireland Since the Famine, 49; Burke, Industrial History, 329;
Weekly Northern Whig 9 February 1924). The 765,251 cattle exported in 1919
brought in £22.7 million which was approximately equal to £12 million in 1914.
Ireland was at the very margin of
the area suitable for the cultivation of all cereals except oats, but its soils
and climate made it the best grass-growing region in Europe. In 1850, the Irish
livestock industry was among the most advanced in the world at the time, and
Ireland was one of the countries Danish farmers studied and from which they
bought livestock when they wished to improve their own farm animals. The more
progressive and market-orientated Irish farmers decided that the shorthorn
breed, either pure or crossed with local cattle, was best suited Irish
conditions. It resulted in a small, well-fleshed beast which was much in demand,
and remained in demand, by English butchers. Great efforts were made to
eradicate disease which would have destroyed markets. Despite the lamentations
of nationalist writers with regard to the decline in tillage and the consequent
fall in population, cattle-rearing produced the best return from Ireland’s
natural resources.
The beef cattle industry was not
greatly affected by the decision of the Danes to concentrate on the production
of milk, bacon, and eggs. Nevertheless, it would seem that Irish stock-raisers
could have done considerably more to improve their output. On less favourable
soils a certain amount of tillage would have maintained or increased the
fertility of the soil. More careful attention to breeding could have reduced the
period the animal needed to reach maturity. Feeding during the winter-time,
again requiring some tillage, would also have shortened the time the animal
needed to reach their prime. This would have involved some extra costs, while to
increase the market the price would have to be reduced. The farmer would have to
work harder for a lesser return, hoping that increased sales would make up the
difference. In addition it proved easier to force the landlord to reduce the
rent in order to increase profits. Cattle-rearing could be a lazy but profitable
occupation. Many farmers, especially small farmers, did maintain a rotation:
potatoes, cereal, hay, and then grazing.
After the Second World War when
there was a plentiful supply of graduate agricultural advisors, often employed
by the banks, farmers were encouraged to keep strict accounts and records, to
borrow more against the projected return, to get the soil in each field tested,
to apply more lime and fertiliser, to sub-soil and mole-drain their fields, to
till their fields in rotation to maintain fertility, to maintain only pedigree
herds from progeny-tested bulls, to cross-breed sheep for the early lamb market,
to winter-feed young cattle with turnips and silage to maintain their condition,
to acquire
manure-handling machinery to
get as much manure, straw and slurry back on to the land, to buy certificated
seeds from the great co-ops, to install hygienic milking parlours, and so on. It
was a different world. Farming became agri-business.
The Dairy Industry
This was one of the branches
of Irish agriculture which was most subject to foreign competition. At first it
benefited from the steam-ships and the railways which made it easier to collect
butter for sale in England. The butter export industry was well developed
especially around Cork city. Butter was made by churning on the farms and was
collected and put into small wooden barrels or casks for export. The taste and
quality was very variable. However, the Cork Butter Market had an elaborate
system of grading. In 1884 an Act of Parliament was passed which allowed the
free sale of butter, so there was no guarantee of quality (Burke, Industrial
History, 323).
Like the other farmers the dairy farmers adopted the shorthorn or the shorthorn
cross, but no attempt was made to establish if a cow was even paying its own
way. On milk yields, the Farmers’ Gazette noted Irish cows with an output
of 420 gallons of milk and 126 pounds of butter a year. Still, in 1920, the
Farmer’s Gazette (27 Nov. 1920) considered that the average Irish milking
cow was not covering its costs. (Presumably, this was done by counting the cost
of farm labour, real or imputed. For the small farmer for whom the grass and the
labour were free, there was an adequate cash return.) The Americans under
experimental conditions by then had cows producing 564 pounds of butter a year.
In Ireland it had been shown that many of the cows in a dairy herd were kept at
a loss. Too many farmers were unwilling to sell off a cow while she produces any
milk at all (Farmers Gazette 27 September 1902). Comments like these were
common in the farming periodicals and the Irish Homestead up to 1920.
Indeed, despite reports on the productivity of the Friesian cow, a milk breed,
the Irish remained faithful to the dual purpose shorthorn. If properly
selected the shorthorn could
give at least 800 gallons without sacrificing the quality of the beef. One
shorthorn cow at Slane Castle, County Meath in 1901 was measured as giving 1,100
gallons.
The
same criticisms were made of stock-rearing in the dairy industry as were made
regarding the beef industry. There was this big difference between the two
branches. The dairy industry was to be subjected to intense foreign competition
whereas the beef industry was not. The number of dairy cows did not increase,
but remained constant at around 1½ millions. It is probably true that until the
big co-operative creameries were well-established few farmers could have
profitably invested in the great milk breeds like the Friesian, half of the
calves of which had to be rejected as virtually useless, unless exported to the
Continent for veal.
Little attempt was made to develop
the production of milk in winter. A fall in supply in winter-time would mean a
rise in price, so the loss of income would be slight. On the other hand the
production of milk in winter could involve the labour intensive production of
silage. Hay, though less nutritious, could often be easier to make. Around 1880
silage was hailed as the great panacea of Irish farming, but by 1900 many who
tried it had given up making it. In making silage, the heavy, newly-cut grass
had to be handled, and the equally heavy silage with its distasteful smell had
again to be handled. Farm labourers detested it. This was at a time when there
was no machinery for managing it (Farmers’ Gazette 25 August 1900).
Turnips were not favoured for dairy cows because it was said they gave an
unfavourable taste to the milk.
The development of the creameries
will be dealt with under food processing, but something can be said regarding
the traditional way of making butter. Milk is an emulsion of fats and proteins
in water. The fats are lighter than the proteins and readily separate out if
left standing with the cream rising to the top. To make butter,
either the milk or the cream is agitated or churned to make the fat
particles adhere together into globules of butter. These are gathered from the
top of the remaining liquid which is called buttermilk, washed with clean water
to remove traces of buttermilk and then salted for preservation. In
northern Ireland the custom was to
churn the whole milk, but in southern Ireland only the cream. Milk from which
the cream was removed was called skim milk and was often used to feed calves.
The milk remaining after churning was called buttermilk and was a favourite
human beverage. It was slightly sour-tasting but very refreshing especially in
hot weather.
To collect the cream, the milk was
placed in either shallow containers from which the cream when it rose to the
surface could be skimmed off, or later in tall thin containers. The introduction
about 1886 into Ireland of the Petersen separator was the beginning of a notable
advance in this country. The mechanical separator was based on the principle
that milk was heavier than cream, so if the milk was put in a vessel that could
be spun rapidly, the milk would move to the sides, and the cream would remain in
the centre from where it could be drawn off. Small separators could be rotated
by hand, but the larger ones were steam-driven. The mechanical separators were
far better than the older methods. About three years later it was recognised
that if the milk were heated the separation was better; and at the same time the
dairy thermometer came into use. The Petersen was followed by the Alexandra and
it by the Alpha Laval; this latter has now four competitors. Mechanical milk
testers were also developed; the past 14 years have seen a transformation in
Irish dairies (Farmers’ Gazette 9 May 1903). A farmer with 40 cows would
have a home separator and a dairy maid.
The farm churn was either a dash
churn, a barrel churn, or a box churn. The most ancient, dating from the
fifteenth century, was the dash churn. It consisted of a tall
thin barrel, narrower at the top than the bottom, fitted with a removable lid
with a hole in its centre through which a plunger could be passed. The plunger
consisted of a round wooden shaft at one end of which was a wooden circular disc
perforated with holes. The milk was churned by raising and dashing the plunger
in a steady unbroken rhythm up and down. The barrel, or end-over-end or tumbling
churn, consisted of a barrel fixed on a frame with a handle at its side to cause
it to rotate end-over-end. In the box churn the milk was agitated by means of
paddles inside a box turned by a crank handle. The dash churn was the simplest
and remained in use on small farms at least until the 1940s.
In 1900 the Farmers’ Gazette
had a scathing Article on the backward condition of butter-making on small
farms. There were often traces of cow hairs and buttermilk remains revealing
careless straining of the milk and washing of the butter; there were smoky
flavours from keeping milk indoors; other odours from keeping the dairy too near
the byres. Very few have thermometers. There was poor packing or protection;
butter wrapped in a calico cloth was put into a farm cart, and then often left
in the sun. Dairies were often used as stables in the winter. They had earthen
floors; the walls were rough and not limewashed; cement or flagged floors being
rare. Utensils, particularly churns, were defective. For creaming the oak
keelers and earthenware pans were preferred to the tin-ware, the latter being
accused of giving a bad odour to the milk. The cream was left on the milk until
it was sour, instead of creaming at regular intervals; the ripening of cream was
often not understood, and resulted in the failure of butter-making during
winter; ripening was often allowed to go too far in summer,
and a starter was not used in
winter, and when it was used it was invariably too sour (Farmer’s Gazette,
3 November 1900). (After the Second World War, the Ministry of Agriculture in
Northern Ireland set out the minimum standards with grants for cattle byres and
dairies, for even the smallest farmers who offered milk for sale.)
The use of milk thermometers was
unknown and never used in dairies; the cream was heated by placing a shovelful
of burning peat next to the vessel. A strainer was never use or only a coarse
one; milking was always done with hands wetted by dipping them in milk; those
used to this method find changing to dry-handed milking very difficult. In hot
weather the milk was generally cooled before setting and allowed to get sour and
thick before skimming; the cream was churned at any temperature and any degree
of acidity; in cold weather if there was difficulty in churning hot water was
added to the churn. The cream was always over-churned, and the butter generally
worked by hand instead of being pressed with a wooden scoop. Salt of an inferior
quality was universal, and butter paper never used. The butter was sent to the
market in an untidy and careless manner, and in hot weather was half-melted
before it arrived at the market. Most of these errors have now been done away
with (loc.cit.). These problems were not peculiar to Ireland.
The dairy instructresses fresh from
the Munster Institute of Dairying no doubt relished relating these tales of
horror, but how common they were is not clear. At the time of the Famine it was
noted that the women from the poorest districts had no knowledge of cookery
apart from boiling potatoes. But most countrywomen making butter for sale in the
butter-market in the local town had a major obstacle to overcome despite the
primitive nature of their equipment, and that was to avoid having a tainted
taste. The women buying the butter always carried a small silver coin, a
sixpence, with which to taste the butter before buying.
There was a more serious problem
with regard to the selling of milk, and that
was the fact that many
diseases could be spread through milk. The problem was not confined to remote
parts of County Cork but
involved those supplying the Dublin market. Following the research on germs by
Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister medical people began to pay close attention to
them in the transmission of disease.
Diseases like enteric fever,
scarlet fever and measles, but also, and much worse, typhoid and tuberculosis.
Medical Officers of Health became concerned.
A report in the Irish Homestead
in 1921 said that 49% of the liquid milk supplied to Dublin city would have been
pronounced unfit for human consumption if the standards of Boston,
Massachusetts, had been applied. The pathological laboratory in Trinity College,
Dublin tested 100 samples of the milk supplied. One sample in every twelve
contained bacilli of tuberculosis. Dublin had a very poor record, and those who
deal in this trade seem entirely ignorant of it; one supplier had 28 million
bacteria per cubic centimetre, and that was not the worst which was 73 million
bacteria; one would have thought they were selling bacteria not milk.
Dr Biggar went to one farm
and instructed the farmer how to milk and under his instruction with regard to
cleanliness and hygiene the bacteria count dropped to one thirtieth of what it
had been; indeed with further re-arrangements of the farm the count could have
been lowered further (Irish Homestead 11 June 1921.)
The Butter Market and the Creamery Movement
The creamery movement is
often confused with the Co-operative Movement which developed many large and
successful creameries but which had a much wider agenda. Creameries could be
formed either on a co-operative basis by milk producers, or else started by an
individual or a group as shareholders who would purchase the milk from the
suppliers. In the first case the risk fell on the producers; in the second case
on the purchasers.
The
basic idea with regard to creameries is that butter should be made in what
resembled factory conditions. The idea coincided with the perceived need for
pasteurisation of milk and the development of the mechanical cream separator.
Also in the 1880s came the idea of using a thermometer at various stages in the
process, especially during pasteurisation. Simply to boil milk gave an
unpalatable taste. But to raise the milk to a moderately high temperature and
maintain the temperature for a period of perhaps 30 minutes destroyed the germs
without impairing the taste. The bacteria necessary for the production of butter
can be re-introduced from a pure source. This method was researched and
pioneered in Denmark. There was no particular need why these new methods could
not be adapted to the family farm, but they lent themselves much better to
factory production.
The chief need to be considered when
choosing a site was the availability of a constant supply of uncontaminated
water. The site should be close to a good system of roads. Most early creameries
were small as the farmers had to bring the milk in carts. As the practice of
collecting milk by lorry or truck developed creameries became much larger. A
steam engine was needed to drive the machinery and to provide heat for
pasteurisation, and also to provide power for the milk cooler afterwards. Most
important of all was a good manager who knew the various processes. At first
Danish or Swedish managers were invited. Pure cultures of bacteria for starting
were also imported from around 1895. It was reported that they improved the
taste of Irish butter. Where the milk had been pasteurised before churning, and
this was becoming increasingly common, the starters were essential. Pasteurising
of the milk was necessary for another reason and this was to prevent the spread
of disease among calves. All milk supplied to a creamery was pooled and
separated, and then an equal quantity of skim milk was returned to the farmers
to feed to the calves. Without pasteurisation disease could be spread from farm
to farm. Machinery was developed for separating, churning, working the butter,
weighing and
packing.
It
was to be many years before the creamery system was settled satisfactorily.
There were those who argued that too much time was spent carting the milk, and
that the skim milk spread disease among calves. There was rivalry between the
co-operative creameries and proprietary creameries. This became more intense
after Horace Plunkett, a Unionist politician and founder of the co-operative
movement in Ireland was made Vice-President of the new Irish Department of
Agriculture and was regarded as unduly favouring co-operation. However, between
them they prevented the Irish dairy industry from being driven out entirely from
the traditional British markets. In Ulster in 1895 there were 12 fully equipped
creameries; in 1900 there were 109 equal to the total of the other three
provinces put together; Ulster was not regarded as a naturally dairying
province, so its success was remarkable. By 1911 there were 380 creameries in
operation. Eventually a rationalisation took place, which was aided by the
development of roads, motor lorries, and milk tankers. The milk-churns by the
farmers’ gates marked the collection area of a creamery. The co-operative
creameries ultimately proved more successful and the proprietary ones
disappeared.
Creameries
followed the example of the Danes not only in using pasteurisation and high
quality cultures for making the milk. They produced a more standard product, and
following Danish example again made it up into one pound blocks and wrapped it
in grease-proof paper.
[Top]
The Co-operative Movement
It is appropriate to treat
the Irish Co-operative Movement here for it was linked closely with the creamery
movement, though its aims were much wider. (It will also be mentioned later in
other contexts.) In 1889 Horace Plunkett, a son of the 16th Lord
Dunsany, started his first co-operative at Dunsany, Co. Meath. Though it was
destined to remain the only co-operative in that county, the movement spread
widely across Ireland, and indeed round the world. The Dunsany family was the
Protestant branch of the Plunketts while the earls of Fingall were of the
Catholic branch. Arthur Plunkett, the 11th Earl of Fingall was a cousin of
Horace. He married Elizabeth Burke, and she as the Countess of Fingall supported
enthusiastically the efforts of her cousin by marriage. The motto of Plunkett’s
Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS) was ‘Better farming, better
business, and better living’. Horace considered that he was developing the
production side, George Russell (A.E.) the editor of The Irish Homestead
was advising on business and marketing, so it was left to Lady Fingall to
improve living conditions in the Irish countryside through the United Irish
Women, later, the Irish Countrywomen’s Association (Fingall, Seventy Year’s
Young, 346).
The
co-operative movement is regarded as having begun in Rochdale in Lancashire in
1844 for retail shopping. It was developed by the Danes for production as well.
Plunkett established, in 1878, in association with the tenants on the family
estate, a Dunsany co-operative society, the germ of the idea that was to
dominate his later life. In 1889 Horace Plunkett returned from America where he
had been working on a ranch in Wyoming whither he had gone when threatened with
tuberculosis and launched his movement. He was joined by the Rev.
Thomas Aloysius Finlay S.J
(1848-1940) a Jesuit priest, educationalist, and author,
who was born at Lanesborough, Co. Roscommon. From 1883 to 1900 Fr Finlay
occupied the chair of philosophy at University College, Dublin. He travelled the
country promoting co-operation, and in 1895 was elected vice-president of the
resultant Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (T. Morrisey,
DNB (2004),
Finlay, T.). He established The Irish Homestead in 1896 as the organ of
the co-operative movement in Ireland and was its editor until 1906. Finlay was
at first assisted as sub-editor by William Lee Plunket, Lord Plunket (one t) son
of the Protestant archbishop of Dublin. Under George Russell (A.E.), editor from
1906 to 1923, it became a journal of international importance.
From 1889 Plunkett formed small
co-operative creameries, and several small farmers’ societies, and in 1891 he
was able to report that 1,000 Irish farmers had joined the movement and had
formed 18 co-operative societies. In 1894 he was obliged to form the Irish
Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS) to supervise a movement which had
become too large for him alone to control. Many farmers were unwilling to
participate, but by 1900 400 branches had been started mainly in the dairying
industry. There were also some engaged in giving instruction in agriculture, in
the poultry and egg trade, and in the bacon curing and horse-breeding lines (Church
of Ireland Gazette 12 January 1900). Of the 600 creameries established
between 1890 and 1900 260 were co-operatives. The creamery movement did not
spread to Ulster until around 1897 but in three years 108 co-operative
creameries were established and 30 more planned (Homestead 12 May 1900).
By the end of 1919 the number of
co-operative societies in Ireland was 1,028 with a paid up share capital of
£434,400, a loan capital of £882,770, and a turnover of £11,158,583; over the
figures for 1918 this meant an increase of 78 new societies, 17,885 new members,
an increase of £441,233 in loan and share capital, and an
increase of £2,070,915 in
turnover; this latter was not solely due to an increase in prices; volumes
traded went up as well. The largest increase was in the agricultural or general
purpose society which was becoming the common or typical one; such were not
specialised in their aims and they undertook to do everything for their members,
buying, selling and manufacturing. Broken down into groups they were as follows:
Central and Auxiliary Dairy
Societies, 439 in number with membership of 50,324, a loan and share capital of
£607,800 and a turnover of £7,047, 079. Next came the Agricultural Societies
which number 350, have their share and loan capital of £362,028 and a turnover
of £1,279,471. Of Credit Banks there were 3 with 15,940 members, and a turnover
of £33,834. There were also 13 societies of poultry-keepers, 55 miscellaneous
societies and home industries societies including bacon factories and
meat-processing, 31 flax societies, and finally two federations [total 1028];
this organisation is a tribute to Sir Horace Plunkett, and some of the best and
most clear-headed of Irishmen of our time (Homestead 10 February 1921).
By the third decade of the twentieth century the manufacture of butter for the
market was almost exclusively in the hands of the co-operative creameries
(Burke, Industrial History, 324). Plunkett was particularly interested in
providing cheap credit to small farms and introducing Raiffeisen banks or credit
unions on the lines developed by Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen in Germany.
Despite the successes of the IAOS
the co-operative movement in Ireland was not nearly as successful as in other
countries. One reason for this was that its philosophy of self-help was totally
contrary to that of the nationalist politicians who preached that Home Rule was
the necessary and sufficient cause of Irish prosperity and who were naturally
opposed to anything that might make Irish farmers contented. The other was the
failure of most of the Catholic clergy to support any organisation which was run
on non-sectarian lines. Their suspicions of Plunkett were confirmed when he
wrote in his book Ireland and the New Century that the Catholic
priests were spending money on the ornamentation of their churches when it would
have been better spent on improving the people’s welfare.
Plunkett, when he was Vice-President
of the Department of Agriculture gave an annual grant to the IAOS, but this was
withdrawn by his successor on the grounds that the IAOS was anti-nationalist (Echo
18 Nov. 1911). Plunkett attributed some of the animosity against
co-operatives to their success in overcoming vested interests, especially among
butter-merchants. In one case a co-op cut the price of artificial manures to the
farmers by 40%, or in at least one case 100%. It was noted too that the average
credit (with interest) of the Dublin merchants to the country farmers was
reduced from nearly a year, to a couple of months; this was because the
creameries paid monthly for the supply of milk, and this regular supply of cash
enabled them to pay their own bills promptly. The farmer could save forty pounds
a year; but what the town trader really wanted was the farmer's little holding (Weekly
Irish Times 23 Nov, 1912; Industrial Journal 26 Mar 1910). (We can
suspect that the original suppliers had operated a ring to maintain the price.)
The creameries associated with the
IAOS suffered heavily during the terrorist campaign by the IRA from 1919 to 1921
for reasons which were and remain very obscure, for it was a non-political
organisation.
The United Irishwomen, taken over
and developed by the Countess of Fingall had some success. It was concerned with
health issues, but also with leisure interests especially for young people in
rural areas. Later its name was changed to the Irish Countrywomen’s Association.
It had nothing like the success of its imitator the Women’s Institute
in Britain which with
Government support was able to establish a branch in most rural parishes.
Poultry and Pigs
The steamship and then the
railway brought an enormous expansion in the export of eggs and poultry
products even before the Famine. In the post-Famine period exports increased
in value to around three quarters that of cattle exports. The industry remained
a small-scale one and largely a woman’s one, the wives of farmers being
responsible for the individual flocks. An effective collection and delivery
system was essential, on at least a weekly basis. Eggs can be kept for longer or
shorter periods without refrigeration or preservation, but the longer they are
kept the greater the likelihood of them going rotten. A wise cook invariable
broke each egg separately into a cup before using. In the second half of the
nineteenth century, up to six weeks might elapse between the laying of the egg
and its use (Farmers’ Gazette 16 Oct 1920). In 1909 the Department of
Agriculture, speaking with regard to complaints from England with regard to
dirty and stale eggs, said that both producers and dealers in eggs had still the
bad habit of keeping eggs too long. But they maintained that the English dealers
were not prepared to pay extra for clean or fresh eggs (Weekly Irish Times
9 Jan 09). The English market could buy all the eggs the Irish and Danes could
produce, so there was little incentive for the Irish farmer’s wife to exert
herself unduly.
Once again, the Danes set new standards. Egg producers belonged to co-ops. Every
egg sold had to be collected on a daily basis, washed, stamped and dated with
the producer’s mark, carefully packed, and dispatched to the distributors in
England. Any complaints could be traced back to the source. Irish producers had
to follow suit, and this was best done through co-operatives. But traditional
egg dealers could also do some things to improve their eggs. In the twentieth
century, poultry instructresses employed by the new county councils played their
part in developing the industry as well.
One such instructress in 1902
complained that henhouses were invariably too small, too badly ventilated, and
with roosts too high (Farmers’ Gazette 3 May 1902). Figures for 1902
showed that Ireland had around 18.8 million hens, with both Tyrone and Down
having over a million birds each. Monaghan, also an Ulster county, with almost
three quarters of a million birds had the greatest density, because it was a
smaller county. Ulster had over 7 million birds while Munster and Leinster had
over 4 million each (Farmers’ Gazette 15 Nov 02). (It was not only in
manufacturing that Ulster was pulling ahead of the rest of Ireland.) Poultry
numbers had increased steadily from about 9.5 million in 1857. Four million
birds were added to the flock between 1890 and 1900.
Poultry in 1902 numbered
18,504,324 a decrease of 7.25% from the average of the preceding decade; of
these 1,038,492 were turkeys, 1,836,191 were geese, 2,945,721 were ducks and
12,683,920 were ordinary fowl (Weekly Irish Times 6 June 03). Geese still
outnumbered turkeys, though their numbers were falling.
At
the turn of the twentieth century the common Irish hen was a mongrel, black in
colour and small in size and laying small eggs whose chief bloodline was a
Spanish hen of notable egg-laying quality. The black hen was a hardy bird,
well-adapted to living outdoors in all Irish weathers. It survived on what it
could gather around the farmyard, and was given some boiled potatoes and Indian
meal (corn meal). It was useless for eating. Incubators, heated by paraffin oil
or kerosene were being used increasingly for hatching eggs, partly because
larger numbers of birds could be hatched at the same time and also because
hatching could be commenced earlier. Hens did not naturally become broody and
sit on their eggs before late April or early May. The returns of the Department
of Agriculture showed that output of individual flocks under commercial
conditions could be determined; the egg average for the 135 flocks with records
was 120 eggs per hen per annum; one flock gave 200 eggs each, and 5 flocks 180
eggs average, and 10 160.
There was an interest in improving
the breeds. In 1909 the White Leghorns, Brown Leghorns, Buff Orpingtons, and
White Wyandottes, breeds developed in the 19th century, were
considered the best (Weekly Irish Times 15 May 09). By 1915 the Black
Orpington was added as well as the 'new breeds' Blue Orpingtons, Anconas, and
Andalusians. The writer commended highly the Rhode Island Reds from
America (Weekly
Irish Times 21 Aug. 1915). By 1919 it was noted that if hens were kept in a
small yard they laid more eggs and fattened quicker than if allowed to roam
around the farmyard, and would also lay throughout the year. Up to 200 eggs a
year could be obtained instead of 100 only in the summer (Weekly Irish Times
18 Jan. 1919). (The average of 100 eggs was not far from the American average of
104 at the time. By the year 2,000 the American average was 244.) The large
poultry shed was now coming into fashion. In 1920 the main producers were still
the farmers’ wives. A farmer in Lurgan in 1924 said he kept a flock of 50 White
Wyandottes, spent £8 on feedstuff and achieved sales of approximately £23. The
editor considered that the low output of others could be caused by poor stock,
elderly stock, and poor management; too many people breed from unselected flocks
(Farmers
Gazette
3, 10 May 1924). This was the same complaint as was made regarding other
livestock and seeds for tillage. There were complaints about the quality of
Irish eggs and the Department of Agriculture was considering a system of date
stamping. A system of spot checking potatoes for export in the North of Ireland
worked wonders. Ireland had become the greatest egg-exporting country in the
world (Farmers’ Gazette 16 Oct., 18 Dec. 1920)
The
value of eggs exported increased from £3 million in 1913 to £15 million in 1919,
while live and dead poultry and feathers amounted to another £3 million.
(Allowing for inflation this was an increase from £3 million to £7.5 million.).
By 1920, at £18 million the poultry industry almost equalled the value of the
export of fat and store cattle combined, namely £21.7 million. Exports of
poultry products etc. in
eggs £15,603,000
poultry £2,750,000
feathers £96,310
total poultry £18,449,310 (Homestead 6 Mar 1920)
Pig production had always been important in Ireland. Like the butter and
poultry industries production was on a small scale, with most farmers trying to
rear some pigs for the market each year. For many small farmers the income they
derived from pigs was almost as great at that from cattle (Homestead 16
June 1900). The export of salted pork became a large industry at the end of the
eighteenth century, and contracts for the Royal Navy were eagerly sought after.
Tastes changed to less heavily salted forms of pig meat like hams and bacon, so
ham and bacon factories were established from 1825 onwards and were very
successful. Though salt was still used in the process it was called curing
rather than salting. In Ireland in 1900 the bacon factories, nineteen in all,
were large and few; 3 in Cork, 4 in Limerick, 1 in Tralee, 3 in Waterford, 1 in
Dundalk, 2 in Dublin, and 2 in Belfast; in addition Ireland shipped
20,000 live pigs a week to
England. It should be noted that the majority of these factories were in the
south of Ireland where the dairy industry was strongest. (Later
Northern Ireland
increased its pig production.) Skim milk became an important part of the pig’s
diet. In Denmark where 25 years ago there were few factories there were now 48,
of which 26 were co-operative and 22 privately-owned; these slaughter 1.2
million pigs a year, nearly all for the English market (Farmers’
Gazette 22 Dec. 1900).
The
breed of the pig followed the demands of the market, for the shape of the pig,
its size, and the amount of fat in the meat varied with the demands of the
butchers. Lean bacon was more popular in England and there were now 5 principal
breeds of bacon pigs; in order of popularity the Large White York; the Middle
White York, the Berkshire, the Tamworth, and the Small White York. The Yorkshire
pig was developed in England in the nineteenth century from the original Large
York crossed with a small fat Chinese pig to get the best of both breeds, and
this was successful. It was long and lean and especially suited for making bacon
from its flanks. As with cattle, butchers favoured a smaller but well-fleshed
animal.
On the other hand the fat pig was
very popular in Ireland as its lard was used to cook vegetables like cabbage.
The Irish pig was a large ugly animal, which produced lean meat when it was
young, but was usually kept for four years until it was large and fat. Bacon
with potatoes and cabbage was a very popular Irish meal. As farmers turned to
the Yorkshire pig for export imports of fat American bacon for home consumption
soared and the American bacon was cheaper than the Irish. In
County Tyrone they
also crossed the Chinese pig with the Very Large York and developed a pig which
became popular in Ireland (Homestead 30 June 1900). Farmers settled on
the Large York
because of its suitability for making bacon, though in
Ulster they preferred the Tyrone
pig.
One
of the reasons for the popularity of the pig with farmers was that they could be
fed on cheap food like potatoes and other root crops, could eat up left-overs
from cooking and could scavenge around the farmyard. Pigs are natural grazers
and were often put into the fields for most of the year just to graze like
cattle. As they were notorious for rooting up ground, rings were put in their
noses to prevent this. This starch-based food produced fat pigs, so it was
realised that their feed should include ground barley or oats with skim milk. It
became the aim to produce a pig ready for curing in 7 months, which required a
diet of barley, skim milk or buttermilk with white potatoes for bulk.
As
with beef cattle, the pigs were sold to dealers who either sold them to the
bacon factories or exported them live to England. Around 1890 about 650,000 live
pigs were being exported, but this declined rapidly in the twentieth century
with about 130,000 exported in 1922 (Northern Whig 9 Feb 23). With regard
to bacon and ham, in 1902 900,000 hundredweights were being exported and 780,000
hundredweights of mainly American bacon were being imported (Burke,
Industrial History, 320-1).
Other Livestock: Sheep and Horses
Sheep
formed an important part
of the Irish economy. The numbers exported to England were often greater than
those of cattle, but the return on a sheep was much less than that on a cow.
Though Ireland retained a woollen manufacturing industry, the bulk of the
wool-clip was exported to England. Bradford in Yorkshire was the world centre
for sorting, grading, and pricing wool. As with other livestock, their numbers
tended to increase as tillage decreased.
Progressive Irish farmers, like their British counterparts since the
mid-eighteenth century, had experimented with improving breeds with greater or
lesser success. One thing became clear and that was that the merino which
produced the best and most sought-after wool would not thrive in the Irish
climate. Sheep are bred to produce wool and mutton, and it proved difficult to
get a satisfactory dual purpose sheep, and it was precisely a dual-purpose beast
that Irish farmers desired. They wanted a sheep that would give a reasonable
quantity of wool and then could be sold as mutton. Mutton did not lend itself to
salting, but responded well to freezing. From 1880 onwards frozen mutton was
imported from the Southern Hemisphere. Nevertheless, exports of live sheep to
England continued to rise. Wool is very variable and for the volumes required
for machine manufacturing had to be carefully sorted and graded. The wool
sorters and graders in Bradford were renowned for their expertise. Basically
there was long wool and short wool, wool with good spinning qualities, and some
with good felting qualities, some very fine and some very coarse, some with good
weaving and some with good knitting properties. Different breeds of sheep
produced different kinds of wool, but as far as Irish farmers were
concerned Britain would take
anything they produced. The mutton was more important. The coarsest wool was
used for carpets.
Before the Famine Irish sheep-farmers had settled on either a small,
short-woolled sheep called the Wicklow, or a large long-woolled sheep called the
Roscommon. The Wicklow sheep resembled the Downs breeds and were often crossed
with them. Their wool was particularly good for making flannel. More popular was
the large, long-woolled sheep, commonly called the Roscommon, though the modern
Roscommon has a large infusion of the Dishley or Leicestershire sheep. Most
farmers though outside County Roscommon preferred to adopt the Leicestershire
breed which produced an abundance of long coarse wool and a good carcass, the
rather similar Lincoln, or the
Border Leicester. (This wool was used chiefly in making carpets.) By 1900 most
lowland sheep in Ireland were the result of various mixtures of these breeds.
Mountain sheep were noted for their
hardiness, and their ability to survive on the rough mountain pastures. In the
eighteenth century the then Marquis of Stafford revolutionised the economy of
large parts of northern Scotland by introducing the Cheviot sheep from the
Scottish border with England. After the Famine, the Cheviot was introduced to
mountainous areas in Ireland, either as a separate breed, or to improve local
mountain sheep like the Wicklow or the Kerry. They produced an excellent mutton,
though they were slow to mature, as well as a useful amount of wool. As the meat
was more important than the wool, farmers about 1870 began crossing the Cheviot
with a ram of one of the Downs breeds with excellent results. The Shropshire was
the principal of the Downs breed used. The question which faced the ordinary
farmer was what rams to use with the ordinary ewes of the country (Farmers’
Gazette 20 Dec 1902).
By
the beginning of the twentieth century, farmers were selecting from many British
breeds to see what gave the best results. In Scotland, the Scottish Blackface
had virtually
displaced the Cheviot, and
Irish farmers were now using Blackface rams rather than Cheviots in their
mountain flocks. Lowland farmers were turning to rams from the Downs breeds to
produce a small, rapidly maturing lamb. Of the large breeds the Border Leicester
was the most common. The Roscommon was going out of favour except in Roscommon
because its carcass was too large. As with the pigs the demand was for smaller
joints. Exports of live sheep in 1902 exceeded 1 million, while the average for
the preceding decade was 875,000. By the second decade of the 20th
century the average export was around 500,000.
The enormous imports of wool from
the Southern Hemisphere forced farmers to turn to half-bred lambs which fattened
easily. This was a trend which became permanent. The Downs breeds were
particularly useful in this respect. The Blackface was adopted on many lowland
farms because of its excellent mutton and early lambing. Later it was found that
they did not thrive on the lowlands, but gradually displaced Cheviots from the
mountains. It had a very coarse wool, much in demand for carpet-making. The
total sheep population was around 3.7 million. As in the beef and poultry
industries we can be sure that the majority of farmers, especially the poorer
ones, were not particularly concerned about the quality of the rams or the sheep
either so long as they got some wool and mutton. As the costs of keeping the
sheep were little more than the costs of the poor-quality pasture any money they
brought in counted as profit. There were two major problems with sheep. Certain
breeds like the Downs were subject to foot-rot on wet soils. The other was the
contagious sheep scab to prevent which it was necessary to dip them regularly in
a special sheep dip. There were several Government Orders connected with this
problem.
Strangely the use of horses reached its height in the age of
steam. Steam
power had three great uses
which transformed the world, in fixed engines, in ships, and on railways. All
traffic to and from railway stations had therefore to be horse-drawn. Some
attempts were made to develop steam-powered machines for agriculture, but their
weight limited their use. The most common was the steam threshing engine. Weak
bridges and legal restrictions limited the use of heavy steam lorries.
In
the first half of the nineteenth century Irish farmers experimented with
improvements to the local horses. Thoroughbreds were imported, but for farm
horses the Leicestershire horse was often used. The Thoroughbred was a highly
specialised race horse and it was very successfully developed in Ireland.
Probably the most successful breeder of racehorses, both for flat racing and
over the jumps was John Gubbins, a Limerickman who lived at Bruree, Co.
Limerick. One of his horses won the English Grand National at Aintree in 1882
(Gubbins DNB).
The
pure Thoroughbred could also be used to develop light horses, light hunters,
hacks and so on. Horses varied in size from slow powerful drayhorses to small
ponies. But the ordinary Irish farmers wanted a general purpose horse, useful
for riding, pulling a plough or a cart, and capable of jumping moderately at the
back of a hunt. One writer noted that the Irish farmer always wanted a horse to
carry him to the hunt and referred to imported English Hackneys as ‘hearse
horses’ (White, Royal Dublin Society, 165). By using Thoroughbred
stallions on local mares there gradually emerged such a horse which possessed
the required qualities.
In the latter part of the
nineteenth century Ireland became known, especially on the Continent, as a
source for excellent cavalry horses. They could be used for artillery or light
cavalry. The horses were just picked by eye at horse fairs and it would seem
that the individual horses were as much a matter of good luck as good judgment.
After 1880 the qualities of the breed were threatened by the importation of
heavy English horses like the Clydesdales and Shires which resulted in a heavier
slower animal (Kidd, Horse Breeds, 60). The general standard of horses in
Ireland was poor, but there were enough reasonably good mares of mixed origin to
provide a reasonable supply of horses for export. But for the individual farmer
this was very much a lottery.
The Congested Districts Board (1891)
and the Department of Agriculture (1898) also considered how the Irish horse
might be improved. As The Farmers’ Gazette in 1900 noted in Ireland horse
breeding for hunters at the moment was entirely haphazard; the horse was judged
on its own merits but before it is foaled nobody knows whether it will turn out
a carthorse, a carriage horse, a hunter, or a costermonger's pony; the fashion
for crossbred hunters sold as geldings means they are the crosses of every known
breed. The Gazette continued saying that in Ireland we had a breed of
clean-legged draught horses, long, deep-bodied; flat-legged, free,
lean-shouldered types, with none of the defects of the English heavy horse the
Suffolk, invaluable as a poor farmer's breed, and a source of wealth as the
mother of the Irish weight carrying hunter and trooper; of all others in
existence there is no such valuable natural country breed. With careful
selection there is no reason why a breed of Irish draught horse should not be
established; remnants still exist in the west and hilly districts where turf is
carried in creels, and in the light tillage counties (Farmers’ Gazette 4,
11 Aug. 1900; Weekly Irish Times 1 Dec 1906)). The Department came round
to the view that a light draught horse from which hunters could be bred best met
Ireland’s needs. These hunters met most of the needs of the various armies, and
the local farmers. The breed of Irish Draught Horse was gradually established.
In 1907 registration of stallions was introduced and in 1917 a stud book was
started. Nevertheless the other breeds, the Thoroughbred, the Clydesdale, the
Hackney, the Shires and other stallions in lesser numbers were recorded by the
Department of Agriculture. The Department also gave premiums for them.
In 1867 the gentlemen of the Royal
Dublin Society became concerned with the decline of the horse population of
Ireland especially as Ireland supplied many horses to the cavalry. In the
following year they commenced the Dublin Horse Show with prizes given for the
various categories of horses, officers’ chargers, carriage geldings, etc., and
special prizes for jumping contests. The Horse Show was moved to permanent
quarters in Ballsbridge, Dublin in 1881 and has remained there ever since
(White, Royal Dublin Society, 157-161). In 1907 hunters were the
chief class exhibited amounting to three quarters of all entries. In 1896 the
Irish Government established a commission to make recommendations with regard to
horse-breeding in Ireland.
There was also considerable
discussion about the advisability of restoring the Connemara pony. Ponies are
not a distinct breed from horses unlike the donkey and so can interbreed freely
with horses. They are smaller than horses, have shorter legs in proportion to
their size and are stronger. Their foals have the same proportions as the pony
unlike the long-legged foal of the horse. They have very strong backs and were
often used in warfare (Kidd, Horse Breeds 12). In the British Isles,
several breeds of ponies survive in the wild. The only one to survive in Ireland
was the Connemara, and it had been ‘improved’ at one point by introducing
Spanish horses from Andalusia. It was not even clear around 1900 whether it had
survived as a single type (Farmers Gazette 20 Nov. 1900 quoting a survey
by the Department of Agriculture). In was not until 1923 that a society was
formed to standardise the breed.
Despite all these efforts the horses
found on Irish farms up until their disappearance were a mongrel lot. Farmers
just bought a horse he fancied at a horse fair subject to the usual examination
of teeth, hooves, gait, and so on. The horse would be selected for the purposes
the buyer required, a pony to draw a trap or buggy, a sturdy horse for the
plough, a harness horse for a delivery van etc. If a farmer had more than one
horse, no two would be similar but invariably there would be a mare from which
he expected to breed a hunter.
Goats in Ireland were not
the object of great studies. They were kept exclusively for their milk. Horace
Plunkett was concerned that their yield of milk was below what could be
achieved. The Countess of Fingall has a wry account of the Swiss goats he
imported to help to boost milk-yield. The problem with them was that they would
eat anything, the thatch off the roof or straw hats (Fingall, Seventy Years
Young, 254).
Control of Animal Diseases
As Ireland turned itself into a
major exporter of livestock in the second half of the nineteenth century control
of animal diseases became very important. There were many restrictions regarding
the importation of animals into the British Isles, which, because they were
islands, were comparatively easy to control. Vigilance with regard to animal
diseases was stepped up in Britain following the outbreaks of rinderpest or
cattle plague, an acute viral infection. These were rare, there being only three
outbreaks in Britain in the nineteenth century, in 1865-6, 1872, and 1877. The
first was the worst for the vets were unprepared; it took the slaughter of
400,000 animals and two years to eradicate. It was at this time that the drastic
solution of slaughtering all infected animals was adopted. Subsequently all
cattle, sheep, and swine were inspected before shipment by veterinary inspectors
employed by the Department of Agriculture and stationed at the ports of Ireland,
and on being certified to be free from any of the diseases scheduled under the
Diseases of Animals Acts and the Orders in Council were licensed for export.
This system of portal veterinary inspection had been in force for over a quarter
of a century (Farmers’ Gazette 13 June 1903).
Before the formation of the County
Councils in 1898 there was no effective local body to deal with animal diseases,
and the Government had to make do with what it had, so control of these diseases
was given to the Poor Law Guardians. The powers under Diseases of Animals Acts
1894, and 1896 were transferred from the Poor Law Guardians (Local Government
Board) to the new Department of Agriculture and the 33 County Councils, two
being in Tipperary. Several Orders in Council of the Lord Lieutenant under those
Acts were now in force. The central authorities, the Board of Agriculture in
Britain and the Veterinary Department of the Privy Council in Ireland,
co-ordinated measures (County Councils Gazette 4 May 1900).The principal
diseases were pleural pneumonia, foot and mouth disease, anthrax, swine fever,
rabies, glanders in horses, and sheep scab. A Sheep Dipping Act (1903) gave
powers to local authorities to make sheep-dipping compulsory in order to
eliminate diseases like sheep scab.
The 159 Boards of Guardians had
powers to make regulations including one for the muzzling of dogs; the
magistrates in the 608 petty sessions districts in Ireland and about 119 other
local authorities of boroughs, towns, and townships also had powers under the
Dogs Act (1871), when a case of rabies or suspected rabies was found in their
district (ibid.). An Order in Council was issued in 1897 making the
universal muzzling of dogs in public places in Ireland compulsory to control
rabies. These diseases were mostly rare in Ireland, though sheep scab and swine
fever persisted. In 1912 there was an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in
County Dublin resulting in the slaughter of over 1,000 cattle. An extensive
enquiry failed to reveal how the disease reached Ireland, but it was suspected
that some drovers returning from
Cumberland might
have been responsible. Another outbreak occurred in 1914. These were the first
occurrences in Ireland for thirty years.
[Top]
Tillage and Crops
The
amount of land devoted to tillage crops fell all over the
British Isles as prices of cereals fell in
England, and the prices for cattle
rose. In England it fell from 68% to 48%. Nevertheless it was deplored by
nationalist writers as a disaster which they maintained was England’s fault, and
which could be reversed by a system of tariffs and export bounties, even though
Adam Smith had long since pointed out the folly of that course. (Smith showed
that the bounties to assist unsuccessful businesses came from taxing the
profitable ones, thus limiting their profit and expansion. With bounties wine
could be made from grapes grown in glasshouses on the tops of mountains, but
that would be pointless.) The period was characterised by emigration, shortage
of farm labour, the increasing use of machinery, the consolidation of holdings
which made the use of machinery more feasible. O’Grada reports the increased
productivity of farm labour between 1850 and 1900. This was higher than in
England but low by comparison with Continental countries in the same period (Ireland,
a New Economic History,
260-2). It is likely however that the factors of enlargement of holdings and
increased use of machinery could account for all of this. By the year 1900
farmers were complaining of the shortage of farm labour, but there can be little
doubt that some of the emigration was caused by the reluctance of farmers to
till their lands properly if only to improve the quality of the grass. (As
farmers with fewer than 30 acres would use only family labour, and neighbours
mutually assisted each other, only one third of farms used hired labour.)
The
use of farm machinery for mowing, reaping, threshing, potato-spraying, and
milk-separating was increasing, though the use of hand tools never disappeared.
In the old spade culture drills or lazybeds were made by hand using a spade, the
seed was planted by hand, the weeding was done by hand, the potatoes were dug by
hand using a special four-pronged fork with long, thin curved tines called a
graip (Partridge, Farm Tools through the Ages, 141). Weeding potatoes or
turnips was often done by women on their knees, though hoes would have made it
easier. Spade cultivation remained predominant in horticulture. Barbed wire
began to be used for fencing around 1900.
The field machines were horse drawn,
and powered by friction from the wheels. The tractor which was to revolutionise
farming came into wider use during the First World War. But already by 1900 oil
or petrol engines and even tractors were appearing on Irish farms. There were
also improved harrows and cultivators, and turnip-chopping machines, corrugated
iron hay sheds, milking machines, and shearing machines. These latter were
powered by pedals; one man pedalled while two men sheared. There was also a
horse-drawn potato-digger. Cattle-sheds where young stock could be housed loose
on straw beds and the protected manure removed after it was 5 feet thick were
available. The IAOS hired out modern machinery like rollers and grubbers. The
milk separator was probably the most important single machine (Farmers’
Gazette, Homestead 1900 passim). Though the use of the flail for threshing
persisted in places until the Second World War, the steam-driven threshing
machine, usually used by contractors, was almost universally adopted, and indeed
became an icon of an era until displaced after the Second World War by the
combine harvester. Power could be provided by hand crank, by horses walked in a
circle, by steam engine or motor tractor, the steam-driven model eventually
predominating. The principle of the successful machine was a rotating drum on
top, outside of which four beater bars were attached. It was rotated inside
another drum with apertures which allowed the sheaves of cereals or legumes to
be fed in and the grain and straw to emerge separately. Belt-driven gearing
allowed the beaters to be spun at high speed, with other parts moving more
slowly. In addition a winnowing fan separated the grain from the chaff, while
sieves removed seeds of weeds. A straw elevator was used to build high straw
ricks.
In hay-making too there were several
machines developed besides the mower. One was the horse-rake with a lever to
lift up the tines to drop the hay at regular intervals into windrows. Another
was a tedder which turned over the swathe cut by the mower to let the hay dry
quicker. It was replaced by a swathe turner which did not scatter the hay. Hay
sweeps or collectors collected the hay from the windrows so that hay stacks up
to ten feet high could be made. These then could be transported to the hayshed
in the farm yard by an ingenious vehicle called a rick-shifter onto which the
haystack was winched (Bell and Watson, Irish Farming, 149). (By replacing the horse’s
shafts with a drawbar the device was continued into the tractor age.)
Cultivating potatoes by hand was
very inefficient, but potato fields had to be a certain size before a horse and
plough could be used. By 1900 the smaller farmer was still using old less
efficient models of ploughs but there were several new kinds available made of
iron. In large fields with good soil the two-wheeled plough was used. In smaller
or stonier fields the lighter wheel-less plough was used which was easier for
the ploughman to control, but involved much heavier work. If the plough struck a
stone the ploughman would jerk it aside to avoid breaking the cast-iron
ploughshare. If this broke a trip to the local blacksmith was needed (Farmers’
Journal 1 Mar 1902).
Harvesting had traditionally been
done by hand with rows of men with sickles following each other in echelon
around the field with the women coming after them to gather and bind the
sheaves. Cyrus Hall McCormick’s mowing machine or reaper with reciprocating
blade appeared in 1831 and was used as a mower in haymaking as long as hay was
made. Marsh’s harvester with canvas belt to gather up the sheaves but no
automatic binding came in 1858. The definitive twine binders were developed in
the 1880s. All were pulled by horses and friction-driven from the ground wheels.
In the twentieth century, the light tractor with an internal combustion engine
was to revolutionise tillage, but tractors were hardly known on Irish farms
before 1917 when compulsory tillage, manpower shortage, and cheap American
models made them essential on larger farms.
The secret of prosperous tillage lay in the timely and thorough
preparation of the soil, the selection of good seed, and the application of
sufficient lime and fertilisers. Both in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
it was estimated that the output per acre of a good farmer was up to four times
better than that of a bad farmer. The Irish Sugar Company, after the Second
World War, demonstrated this be supplying the same seed to farmers on identical
land and weighing the output per acre. In one case the ploughing, harrowing,
manuring, sowing, weeding, and finally lifting were done thoroughly at the
proper times. In another case they were not. The bad farmer of course blamed the
seed supplied!
The quality of the soil could in
cases be improved by adding lime, marl, gravel, or sand. Lime (calcium
hydroxide) reduced acidity, as did marl where it was available. Marl could be
sand, clay or silt that contained calcium carbonate. Acids in the soil,
principally carbonic acid, came from decaying vegetation in wet conditions. The
hydroxide neutralised it. The structure of a heavy clay soil could be improved
by adding gravel or sand.
Until the middle of the nineteenth
century only farmyard manure was used as a fertiliser; then came guano, then
nitrate of soda, dissolved bones and superphosphate (calcium phosphate treated
with sulphuric acid to make it more soluble); these were followed by ammonium
sulphate, and potash in various grades. At present the farmer relies on nitrate
of soda or sulphate of ammonia to supply nitrogen, superphosphate to supply
phosphates, and muriate of potash or sulphate of potash to supply potash (Irish
Gardening April 1906). By 1900 a by-product of the production of steel known
as basic slag came into general use as a source of phosphates. For phosphorus
farmers relied on superphosphate and basic slag, while bones, once widely used,
and guano, were less used, the latter because much of it is over-priced for its
quality. Basic slag works wonders on moory soils, or those deficient in lime (Farmers
Gazette 20 Sept 1902) (Basic slag from ironworks was the impurities which
contained metallic oxides and phosphates.) When agricultural co-operatives were
formed they effected a reduction of 30, 50 and even 100% in the costs of
fertilisers; the lower prices may have injured the trader, but they benefited
the farmer and the manufacturer.
In the years after 1850 there was a
tendency to apply excessive amounts of lime. Where this was done on soils that
were already rich in lime crop production was reduced and resulted in a
prejudice against all lime. Potatoes, for example, do best in a slightly acidic
soil, and less well in a basic or alkaline soil. Most vegetables prefer an
alkaline soil. This shows that there was confusion between lime and fertiliser.
Lime is applied to acid soils to reduce their acidity and so to increase the
beneficial bacteria in the soil which do not thrive in acidic conditions.
Fertiliser supplies nutrients to the plants. By 1900 there was a decline in the
use of sea-weed in coastal areas. Formerly the sea-weed had been farmed with
stretches of beach marked out for individual families. Harvesting wet sea-weed
was an extremely laborious task, though it was allowed to dry before being
carted away (Farmers’ Gazette 1 Feb. 1902)
Reliance totally on artificial
fertilisers damaged the soil. The use of guano was introduced into Ireland in
the 1850s particularly by Scotsmen who were given leases of farms. At first the
local Irish would not consider its use, but stuck to the old system of farmyard
manure and ditch cleaning. But when they saw the results they went to the
opposite extreme and used nothing else. In
County Wexford
cowsheds were given boarded floors so that there was no need for bedding. All
the straw and other fodders were sold; the marl holes and gravel pits were
abandoned, and only lunatics would think of clearing out their ditches; the land
rapidly became excellent snipe ground [wet and acidic]. Nobody bothered to
collect the wrack from the foreshore. Even farm labourers objected to the extra
work in bedding cattle and spreading manure. One man the writer had employed
left his employment because, as he said, "the artificials could be bought quite
handy and saved at less trouble". In various places in the fifties and sixties
the landed proprietors took in and improved their moors, both the natural ones
and the 'cut-away' bogs; when these were let out to tenants they were given the
artificial treatment; this did fairly well in dry years, but in wet years the
soil degenerated into unprofitable mud. (It is possible to grow excellent crops
on what is left of well-drained bogs after most of the peat has been removed for
fuel, but it needs careful management.) The writer noted that the mountaineer
neglected all the natural manures around him and bought the artificial which was
no trouble except to carry it home. It has however to be paid for, and this, if
the crop fails means selling their heifer, or a few sheep (Farmers Gazette
5 July 1902).
Drainage of fields was well-advanced
by mid-century. In a wet country like Ireland drainage was more important than
irrigation. Most cultivated crops did badly when the soil was water-logged. In
the first half of the century, drainage ditches were dug along the edges of
fields. In the lazybed and rundale systems surface drains resulted from the mode
of cultivation. In the rundale system ploughs were used to raise wide ridges or
rigs with dales or valleys between them. In the lazybed system dug with a spade
the ridges were narrower and flatter, with deep trenches between them. But by
mid-century sub-soil drainage was becoming important. In these trenches were dug
at regular intervals, clay tiles or pipes were laid, and the trenches filled in.
These drains often had a branching or herringbone pattern. The main branch or
stem ran into the ditch at the bottom of the field. These sub-soil drains,
though expensive to make needed little maintenance afterwards. The open ditches
regularly became clogged if not cleaned out with a shovel regularly. From the
eighteenth century onwards various kinds of stone drains were used, but in the
second half of the nineteenth century shaped clay tiles or cylindrical pipes
were used (Bell and Watson, Irish Farming, 19-21).
Though tillage declined overall the
greatest decline was in wheat-growing, where the crop fell to about a tenth of
what it had been. British and Irish farmers just could not compete on either
cost or quality with American or Australian wheat. Clearly the fall in
population of Ireland to a half also had an effect. The crops of oats and barley
as well fell to about half of what they had been. These were also used for
animal and poultry feed and for distilling. Green crops or root crops too fell
considerably from 1.75 million in 1860 to 1 million in 1910. The area under flax
fell from 175,000 acres to 50,000. The area under potatoes fell from 1.2 million
acres to 588,000. The fall here can be closely correlated with the fall in
population for potatoes were used chiefly for human consumption within
Ireland. As Lyons
notes, in 1908 of the six main tillage crops in only three cases, namely wheat,
barley and flax, was more than 30% of the crop sold off the farm. The others
were grown for consumption on the farm (Ireland Since the Famine,
48). It should be noted that the figures here quoted are not always directly
comparable for different definitions of categories may have been used in either
the surveys or in the way they were reported. They do show that there was a
decline in tillage but even so up to 2 million acres were still being tilled in
1914. As Burke notes, cattle-raising was always Ireland’s chief agricultural
product. Tillage had been artificially increased by Foster’s Corn Law of 1784
(Burke, Industrial History, 314). Other factors were the high prices
during the Napoleonic Wars, the Continental System, and the Corn Laws that
followed them aimed at maintaining war prices. When these distortions were
removed Irish farmers again moved towards the produce that gave them the best
return.
The change to haymaking and grazing
corresponds with the change in prices available. Prices for wheat, oats, barley,
potatoes and flax rose by 50%. The price for hay rose 200%, beef 100%, butter
77%, wool 81%, eggs 71% and young store cattle 129%. These changes in prices
explain the drift to dairying, beef raising, poultry-keeping, and haymaking. Hay
was the regular winter feed for cattle. By 1900 in Ireland there were 20 million
acres of which 4½ millions were in rotation crops, 10½ million were under grass,
and 4¾ million acres are bog, marsh, barren mountain, and water. Another reason
given for the decline in tillage was the growing scarcity of farm labour. In
Ireland farm labourers were highly skilled persons who had to be able to do such
diverse tasks as milk cows, castrate rams and bull calves, plough and harrow
with horses, use a scythe or mowing machine, build a rick or haystack, and so
on. When such men emigrated there was no short-term way of replacing them.
Armagh had the most land under
tillage and was the most intensively farmed county.
County under
crops under pasture; (percentage of total acreage)
Armagh 42.6 44.6
Down 41.9 41.9
Louth 39.7 45.3
Monaghan
35.4 53.5
Londonderry
33.8 45.3
Carlow 33.2 54.1
Wexford 32.5 56.3
Antrim 31.4 49.5
Tyrone 30.3 43.3
There are some points to be observed
about this table. The first is the percentage of land in each county capable of
being farmed. All the counties in this table of the top tillage counties have
little uncultivable mountain or bog. Still it is surprising that four Border
counties, a region of small farms, top the table. Mayo was bottom of both lists
having the least proportion under tillage and under grass; most of the county
consists of barren mountains. Meath topped the grazing districts with 72.3% of
it under permanent grass, followed by Westmeath 65.5% and Limerick in third
place with 65.0%. Down, Dublin, and Louth had a reputation of being the best
farming counties and their yields of potatoes per acre, 6.6 tons, were the best
in Ireland. Supposedly backward counties like Donegal, Mayo and Kerry were not
far behind (Farmers’ Gazette 2 Aug. 1902). Of potentially tillable land
only 8% in County Limerick and 10% in County Meath was tilled. A writer in the
Farmers’ Gazette observed that there was no obvious reason why this was
so. Both counties a century earlier had been quite extensively tilled.
Roscommon, another county with low tillage figures had for centuries been known
for its sheep ranches. Co. Down and Co. Dublin were similar in having good
soils, being close to the warmer sea in winter, and being near a great city.
Tillage statistics showed that the
average yield of potatoes in Ireland in 1910 was 5.5 tons per statute acre
compared with 4.4 tons average in the decade 1899 -1908; the acreage of the crop
in 1909 was 579,799 acres yielding 3,202,819 tons (Industrial Journal 8
Jan., 26 Mar. 1910). The best counties for potatoes were Down, Louth and Dublin
which yielded 6.6 tons to the acre. However potato growing experiments by the
Department of Agriculture carried out at five centres in Down, seven in Tyrone,
and five in Limerick, showed the best yield was in one place in Tyrone which had
20 tons to the acre; another place in the same county gave over 19 tons, but one
in Limerick only five tons. The experiments with mangels gave a yield of 37 tons
to the acre, with one plot in Tyrone giving 50 tons (Farmers Gazette 8
Mar 1902). Improvements in potato growing in the past half century were
spraying, boxing, better manuring, and the introduction of more productive
varieties. (Potato seed was placed in sprouting boxes to induce earlier
sprouting and thus earlier planting and a heavier crop.) The acreage under
potatoes was greater than that of all the other root crops put together. The
Champion variety in 1901 accounted for 66.15% of the potato crop; since it
introduction 20 years ago it has become the predominating variety. The spraying
of potatoes with copper sulphate against the blight which caused the Great
Famine was common in some counties and not in others.
By 1920, farmers in Northern Ireland
were developing export markets for seed potatoes and for hayseed. In both cases
advantage was being taken of Ireland’s relative freedom from disease. Also it
had been found that seed from potatoes grown in cooler wetter places like
Ireland and Scotland produced better crops in warmer, dryer regions than local
seed. By 1920, the Department and the Gazette reported an increase in the
yield per acre of tillage land over the previous 15 years (Farmers’ Gazette
10 Jan, 10 Dec. 1920).
Mangels, a type of beetroot, was the
only root crop to show an increase in the last half century. Last years’ crop of
77,144 acres was nearly three times that of the 22,567 acres in 1855,
contrasting with the fall in potatoes from 982,301 acres in 1855 to 629,304 in
1902. The comparable turnip (brassica rapa) fell from 366,000 in 1855 to
288,506 in 1902. It is valuable as a bulky soft food for winter feeding, it is a
heavy cropper, and is less subject to disease than turnips. During the last 20
or 30 years it has been introduced into areas where it had not been before, or
where it was thought impossible to cultivate. Sometimes habit is against its
introduction; it will never altogether oust swedes as it requires a heavier soil
and a warmer drier climate. Swedish turnips (swedes, brassica napus)
are an excellent crop but the land can get tired of them; another thing in
favour of the mangels is that the roots improve with keeping. They also can be
fed to dairy cattle without flavouring the milk as turnips do; useful for pigs
and horses (Farmers’ Gazette 18 April 1903). 77, 000 acres of mangels
were grown in 1902 compared with 288, 000 acres of the traditional turnip.
Swedes were grown as animal food. Sugar beet was grown chiefly for feeding
horses. Only tariffs could make sugar beet competitive against sugar cane. The
Department of Agriculture conducted some experiments and concluded that at least
3,000 acres of beet quite close to the sugar factory would be needed to make it
viable. Allowing for crop rotation, this would mean farms totalling 12,000
acres. Garden beet was grown in gardens for human food.
The cultivation of flax steadily
declined. Belgium produced better fibre than the best Irish. In that country,
retting or soaking the flax in water was a specialist job and was best done in
the slow-moving waters of the Lys. In Ireland the farmer not only had to pull
the flax by hand, but had to ret in specially dug flax-holes on his farm causing
a certain amount of discolouration. The yield could be very variable, from 20
stones to 60 per acre. A crop of 40 stones was required to break even. By the
end of the nineteenth century most of the flax used in the linen mills was
imported from Belgium (Belfast Weekly News 9 June 1900). It never proved
possible to get farmers in other parts of Ireland where the soil and climate
were more suitable to grow the crop. During the First World War a Flax Control
Board was established following the collapse of Russia to ensure that there was
a sufficient supply of linen for making aeroplanes, linen fabric being the most
suitable for the purpose. This Board set a good guaranteed price and the acreage
in Ireland under flax rose to 140,000 acres.
Oats was the most popular cereal in
Ireland because it was the most versatile food; it is suitable for horses,
fattening cattle, dairy cattle, young animals, sheep, pigs, and poultry, and
also for making porridge. Most oats was grown for animal feed. Barley was the
great crop for sale to the brewing and distilling industries. By far the most
popular crop by 1914 was hay with around 2.5 million acres. All cereals amounted
to around 1.2 million acres, and all root crops including potatoes about 1
million acres. Flax accounted for 55,000 acres and fruit 15,000 acres. In common
with farmers in the rest of the British Isles, where soils were suitable fruits
were planted. The soil and climate in the north of County Armagh proved suitable
for apples. As elsewhere, fruit-growing led to a fruit-preserving and jam-making
industry. Horace Plunkett was convinced that Ireland could become a great
tobacco-growing country. The cigarette and tobacco industry was well-developed
in Ireland. Some who tried the crop met with success. But in 1912 only 130 acres
were grown. Most farmers remained sceptical. Cabbage (brassica oleracea)
was the most widely-grown vegetable, though many farmers did not know how to
grow it properly. Cabbage could not be grown in the same plot in successive
years.
The great crop of Ireland by this
time was hay. Hayseed was planted as part of a rotation which could be irregular
and informal. Though the four year Norfolk rotation of green (root) crop,
followed in succession by barley or oats, then clover, followed by oats or wheat
was sometimes followed. Clover was leguminous restoring nitrogen to the soil.
All farmers knew not to put the same crop in the same field in successive years.
Potatoes and/or turnips were useful for cleaning the ground of weeds, partly
because it was easy to weed them when they were young while later the green tops
smothered the weeds. Then a cereal crop could be planted which in the spring was
over-sown with rye grasses and red clover together. As clover matured later than
hay the grazing season was extended. If the land was being returned to pasture a
different mixture of seeds of permanent grasses was used. Rye grass, though it
gave a heavy crop, was short-lived.
The following year the grass was cut
with the scythe or mowing machine and allowed to dry thoroughly. Then it was
built up into haystacks where it could keep for a couple of years. By 1900 many
farms had large haysheds made of corrugated iron which more effectively kept out
the rain. In the north of Ireland where hayseed was collected, the hay was made
into sheaves and threshed like an ordinary cereal. Good-quality hay needed to be
cut at the proper time, and then rapidly dried and made up into stacks. But with
Ireland’s climate of constant intermittent rain this was easier said than done.
If the grass was not properly dry and withered it heated and spoiled in the
stacks. On the other hand, the longer was spent turning the hay to dry it
properly the less was its nutritious quality. So around 1880 attempts were made
to introduce the art of silage-making by means of which even wet grass could be
saved and stored with even less loss of nutritious value. But the process never
became popular until the introduction of proper machinery after the Second World
War to lighten the work.
Its advantages were that it
could be made in bad weather; its disadvantages were that it was heavy, hard to
handle, unsalable, and did not keep after it was removed from the pit; there was
also some loss round the edges.
Once again, the officials of the
Department of Agriculture found many examples of bad practice. One was planting
impermanent Italian ryegrass and red clover when it was intended to lay down a
permanent pasture. Eventually good land would re-seed itself with local grasses,
but not for many years. But second-rate soils re-seeded themselves with local
grasses, daisies, moss, bent grass, and other weeds, and this kind of pasture
was very common. Application of fertiliser was useless for it only fed the
weeds.
One problem was the absence of
proper seed merchants in most country towns where people like publicans or
iron-mongers often sold seed as an adjunct of their business. At times they sold
the sweepings of the lofts, weed-seeds and all. The IAOS took steps to improve
the quality of the seed they sold, but they had to charge a higher price, which
did not please the members of some associated societies who wished to meet
competition from the seed merchants. The use of cheap seed, like the use of
scrub bulls, was probably common among the older farmers on the smallest farms,
and it never got better. On the other hand, some Irish nurserymen and seeds men
had an international reputation.
[Top]
Horticulture
Horticulture was an area where Ireland was still a leader in 1900. Gardens both
for flowers and vegetables were maintained by many of the leading farmers.
Gentlemen could have large gardens with a large staff. Then there were market
gardeners on the outskirts of the cities and towns. The professional people,
including the clergy, school-teachers and such like could maintain smaller
gardens either for flowers, vegetables or both. Finally, even labourers in the
labourers’ cottages could maintain small gardens. This practice was not
universal, and many small farmers did not have gardens, being contented to grow
cabbage and turnips in a field. Any woman with even limited social pretensions
would plant some flowers in front of her house.
David Drummond, a Scotchman, in the
1840’s settled in Dublin and established a seeds and nursery business which
became Messrs. William Drummond and Sons, seeds merchants and nurserymen. Alex
Dickson of Belfast was another seed merchant and nurseryman, as was Tait's of
Dublin (Farmers’
Gazette 19 Feb 04). Alexander Dickson of Newtownards and Belfast, speaking
on rose growing, said it was not until 1877 that his firm distributed their own
roses, but were now the champion rose growers and had been awarded 17 gold
medals by the National Rose Society (Farmers Gazette 9 March 04). By
1918, the sales Dickson’s ‘Hallmark’ seeds were eight times what they were in
1908. Horticulturalists visited the famous daffodil bulb farm of Hogg and
Robertson at Rush, Co. Dublin (Farmers’ Gazette 7 May 04). The Gazette
published an Article on the cultivation of the tomato. This is the rising
vegetable of the day; the demand is only recent, yet seems set to increase
immensely. The taste is an acquired one; the habit of eating them raw has been
imported from America, either whole or shredded in salad, with only salt and
pepper added. They are in demand all the year round. They are grown from seeds
in hotbeds; potted when the leaves are formed; and planted out in June. They
need plenty of food and water (18 June 04). Later it was realised that with the
Irish climate tomatoes could only be grown for market under glass, and the great
expansion of the tomato-growing industry had to wait until after the Second
World War.
Irish horticulture was flourishing;
formerly flowers were grown for exhibition only; now they are grown almost
exclusively for the market; in some cases however, like hyacinths, tulips, pot
roses etc. the standards have not changed, and the plants now on sale are as
good as those of 25 years ago. There were far more average gardens now than
there were then, and vegetables and outdoor fruits were grown more; also some
flowers like cut roses, chrysanthemums, some dahlias, some begonias, and sweet
peas have improved out of recognition. Irish nurserymen and seed merchants now
have an international reputation; Irish seeds are even bought in Holland.
The county councils have employed
peripatetic instructors drawn from men who had been gardeners in private
establishments; the development of gardening would bring an excellent diversity
to the cottagers’ diet. The districts which have adopted fruit-growing, Lough
Gall and Richhill in Armagh, and Duleek and Gormanstown in Meath were notably
prosperous. The Department has established several fruit-growing centres for
instruction in fruit-growing. As in similar districts around Dundee in Scotland,
the fruit-growing districts became famous for jams and preserves (Irish
Gardening, March 1906). A letter in the December issue complained that Irish
fruit, especially Irish apples were unobtainable in Irish country towns; the
shopkeepers say they can only get American apples; there are no Irish suppliers
(loc.cit.).
[Top]
Fisheries
Unlike other countries on the Atlantic coasts of Europe Ireland never built up a
great fishing fleet, fishing as far away as Newfoundland and Iceland.
Nevertheless, in the Irish Sea and some distance out into the Atlantic Irish
boats fished. Almost everywhere along the coast there was coastal fishing in
small open boats. Decked boats were used in the large fishing ports. There was
also oyster-fishing and the collection of shell-fish on a small scale, and
eel-fisheries despite the fact that the Irish did not eat eels, and little
shellfish. There was no mass-market for fish in Ireland. Herring, mackerel, and
whiting were eaten on Fridays, each in their season, when they were available.
The freshwater fishing was almost exclusively for the sporting fish, trout and
salmon, which would be served in the local hotels, if not eaten by poachers, a
flourishing trade. Herring, the bedrock of British fisheries, had virtually
disappeared from Irish shores. But in the nineteenth century, Irish fishermen
turned towards mackerel, a deep-water fish which feeds on the surface at certain
times of the year. The centre of the industry was Kerry, few mackerel going
further north. The herring fishery off Donegal had an unexpected revival in
1900. By 1910 about 40 steam drifters were involved, each costing between three
and four thousand pounds; all were owned by English or Scottish companies. Irish
fishermen did not combine to buy boats like these (Weekly Irish Times
2 April 1910). Individually owned boats were still the norm in Ireland. The
fish however were landed and cured in Donegal, providing local work. The herring
fishery in the Irish Sea revived too. By 1919 local inshore fishermen in Dublin
Bay were complaining that ring-fishing, where the seine nets are cast out while
the boat sails in a circle, was even more devastating to fish stocks than the
trawlers which were banned from the bay (Weekly Irish Times 23 August
1919). Oyster fishing off Clontarf on Dublin Bay had to be discontinued because
the beds were contaminated by sewage. By 1920 the herring was the most valuable
catch, but was again declining, while catches of mackerel now almost equalled
the herring catch. By the beginning of the 20th century coastal
fisheries were thriving following the introduction of motor vessels. This led to
great activity in Irish boat yards (Enniscorthy Echo 12 Aug 1911)
By
1900, improvements in communications and in the ability to preserve fish meant
that a considerable part of the catch could be exported, and the value of fish
exports was almost £0.5 million, about a third of wool and woollen goods.
Mackerel was pickled and sent to America. But the bulk of exports was to Britain
and consisted of salmon which were netted in the estuaries as the fully-grown
salmon were returning to spawn. The great centre of salmon fishing was in the
north of Ireland. Ireland was catching more salmon than Scotland.
A Government Report in 1908 was
pessimistic with regard to fish. Despite all its natural advantages it was a
paltry affair; in 1905 it was estimated that the value of all fish exported,
sea, freshwater, and shellfish was £403,000, while £275,000 was imported. No
industry was declining in
Ireland more
rapidly than the fishing industry. Protection from the poaching by [foreign]
steam trawlers, better harbours, greater restrictions on the use of the seine
net, and provision of better boats, are all specified as remedies (Weekly
Irish Times 6 June 1908).
In evidence before a House of Lords
committee a witness stated that there were there were nine-steam trawlers in
Dublin landing about 3,000 tons of fish annually, and a number of sailing
trawlers on the west coast, chiefly at Dingle and Galway landing in total about
500 tons. Sailing trawlers had virtually been driven from the North Sea by this
date by the steam trawler. Where fish were landed, there were jobs onshore for
the curers and the carters. The demand for fishing boats in the Irish boat yards
increased. Motors were gradually added to fishing boats, or may have replaced
steam engines
County Down emerged as a great
fishing county. In 1923 the total number of boats engaged was 505 and laid up
207; motor vessels 219, sailing boats 331, oars only 162. Herring boats numbered
163, trawlers 80, Danish seining 14, lines 118, lobster 100, while about 200
people were engaged in collecting shell fish. The three principal branches were
herring fishing, line fishing [usually for mackerel; lines with hundreds of
baited hooks were used], and inshore trawling. The Co. Down summer herring
fisheries at Portavogie, Ardglass, Kilkeel, and Annalong were the principal
fisheries; of these Ardglass was the chief, for fish could be landed there at
any state of the tide; the fish were sold fresh in the Belfast market, the port
being connected directly by rail. Formerly they were also pickled for the German
market. There was little deep sea fishing done from Ulster though there were
fishing grounds off the north coast exploited by others (Weekly
Northern Whig 8 March 1924).
Irish eel fisheries exported eels
worth £21,018 in 1913 and £15,217 in 1914. The most important eel fisheries were
on the Shannon and the Bann, the former employing 200 and the latter 300. The
fisheries in Limerick, Waterford, Galway and Connemara have not shown the same
improvement as those on the Bann including Lough Neagh. Nearly all went to the
English market. There were complaints from buyers there that Irish eels were
badly packed and often dead on arrival, so they preferred to buy from Denmark
and Holland where they were properly graded and packed. Another buyer said he
liked Waterford eels for they did not fill the boxes more than 2/3rds full so
the eels arrived in London alive and in good condition. Many Irish fisheries
were abandoned because the Irish no longer eat eels, and the weirs were in poor
condition; the eel fishery around Limerick is now thriving and profitable, all
being sold in England. The Shannon fishery was centred on Athlone, and on the
upper reaches of the Shannon, but none was sold locally (Weekly Irish Times
9 Dec 1916).
The chief inland fisheries in rivers
and lakes at this time seem to have been concerned with angling for sport. A lot
of fish were of course caught by local fishermen and these were not all
necessarily game fish. A great problem with the industry was the prevalence of
poaching. None of this surprises those who lived in the Irish countryside where
poaching is regarded as a basic human right. A writer attributed the decline of
inland fisheries to excessive and illegal netting at the mouth of tidal rivers;
the introduction of poisonous substances from factories and mills; the
non-observance of the close time and the general lack of water bailiffs; the
killing of small fish; poaching and illegal methods of fishing; the great
increase of perch and pike, and the excessive numbers of anglers (Farmers’
Gazette 23 June 1900). One observer considered that with proper preservation
in the closed season and the hiring of a sufficient number of bailiffs, the
catch of salmon on the Shannon could be doubled (Irish Field 21 Jan
1900). The value of the inland fisheries of Ireland was said to be worth around
£350,000 annually, equal to that of the marine fishery, though not of course in
the sale of the fish at market. Rentals of fishing rivers in Scotland made them
a valuable national asset. Values in
Ireland could be as
high if poaching could be controlled (Warder 9 Aug 02). Angling on the
lakes in the Midlands was better provided for than on many English lakes, and
anglers from Manchester used to travel there regularly. All commentators were in
agreement that fishing in inland waters was in decline (Farmers’ Gazette
20 April 1900).
The Congested Districts Board made
great efforts to develop the fisheries along the western coast, advancing money
for boats, and providing curing stations for herring and cod. The Department of
Agriculture also tried to promote fisheries, in its first year allocating
£10,000 towards the promotion of fisheries. There was also an Irish Fisheries
Board charged with their encouragement. Professor John Joly and Professor Daniel
Cunningham of Trinity College developed a programme for marine research for the
benefit of Irish fisheries (Joly
DNB;
McDowell, Irish Administration 208-9).
The person behind the project was
the Rev. William Spotiswood Green, of Carrigaline, Co. Cork. In 1887 the Royal
Dublin Society appointed a Fisheries Committee and Mr Green was asked to report
on the fisheries in his area. The usual way of conducting enquiries in the
nineteenth century was to write to the leading gentlemen and clergymen in the
chosen area and ask their views. Later, in 1890, the Society agreed with the
Chief Secretary, Arthur Balfour, that the Society would conduct a survey of the
west coast fisheries, the Society and the Government each paying half the cost.
Mr Green was placed in charge of the survey having been appointed Inspector of
Fisheries (White, The Royal Dublin Society, 162-5; Encyclopaedia of
Ireland, Edward Holt). White noted that there were endless Reports on the
subject from royal commissions, the Board of Works, and the Inspectors of Irish
Fisheries covering the same ground over and over again. The work of the Society
was taken over by the Department of Agriculture in 1900. Despite Government
efforts over the centuries, Irish fisheries never developed to the extent of
Scottish fisheries.
[Top]
Forestry
Since early in the eighteenth century Ireland’s deforested state had worried
Irish gentlemen and the Irish Government, and from time to time great private
efforts were made at planting trees. Ireland was still however, after Iceland,
the most treeless country in Europe. By 1850 there was in the whole of Ireland
about 350,000 acres, which had declined to around 300,000 acres by 1900. (For
comparison, the present Irish Government has a target of 2.5 million acres or
about 15% of the country.)
Hardwoods like oak had been
traditionally planted. The second half of the nineteenth century saw the
introduction of fast-growing softwood trees from the American Pacific coast like
the Douglas fir, the Sitka spruce, and the Japanese larch. Planting by
landowners, like many other things, declined with the passing of the Land Acts
from 1881 onwards, but by no means ceased. Tree-felling however exceeded
tree-planting. The tenants normally when they got possession of land sold the
trees on it. The Department of Agriculture’s figures for tree planting and
felling in 1900 showed 1,243,544 trees planted against 1,596,959 felled.
Planting was done by landlords on their demesne lands or waste lands.
Province planted felled
Leinster 386,946 224,824
Munster
537,189 600,692
Ulster 232,854 285,228
Connaught
86,555 46,215
The counties with the largest number
of trees planted were Cork 248,469; Waterford, 158,000; Kings Co. 107,000;
Tyrone 83,000; Tipperary 77,000; and Queen's Co 72,000. At the other end of the
scale were Leitrim with 15 trees planted, Longford 400, and Clare 700 (Farmers’
Gazette 20 July 1901). It was estimated that land let at 8 shillings an acre
or less could more profitably be planted with trees. The drawbacks were the
initial heavy cost with no return for 30 years (Farmers’ Gazette 19 Oct.
1901). At the formation of an Irish Arboricultural Society in 1901 it was noted
that the total superficial area of Ireland was 20,327,947 acres of which
4,787,003 were bog, waste, barren mountain waters and marsh (say roughly 5
million acres) and under woods and plantations in 1900 311,648 acres. There were
2 million acres of absolutely denuded and steep uplands every acre of which
should be planted; last year only 629 acres were planted and 1451 acres cleared;
only 1.5% of the surface of Ireland was under forest (Farmers Gazette 26
October 1901).
Lord Palmerston showed that it was
possible to stabilise sand-dunes and plant trees on his estate on the Atlantic
seaboard at Mullaghmore, Co. Sligo. (Lord Louis Mountbatten was later murdered
there by the IRA). Professor Lyons, a Dublin physician and professor of medicine
in the Medical School of the Catholic University collected information on
forestry in other countries and published the results of his enquiry in 1883 (DNB
R.S. Lyons). The Recess Committee in 1896 considered the matter and
concluded that there were 3 million acres of wastelands which could be planted.
Perhaps unduly impressed by Palmerston’s success, Arthur Balfour decided that
the Government itself should give a lead in reforestation. In 1890 the Irish
Government procured 960 acres near Carna in Connemara with a view to planting it
with trees. The property was placed under the Irish Land Commission who spent
£2,000 in draining, fencing, and planting. On the formation of the Congested
Districts Board, the forest called the forest of Knockboy, was transferred to
it, and it entered into the scheme with enthusiasm. It was maintained that if
the experiment was successful at Carna, on mountain slopes covered with a
shallow boggy soil, and exposed to the Atlantic winds, it would prove that
Ireland could be reforested anywhere. Planting was carried out on a large scale
in 1893 and 1894; in 1895 it was reported that the trees were not thriving and
planting was suspended. In 1898 the experiment was abandoned; the total amount
spent had amounted to £10,500; total receipts were £24 4s; it was a costly
failure (New Irish Jurist 6 Feb. 1903).
The question arose whether forestry
could pay. The Royal Commission on Forestry in 1887 took much evidence which
tended to throw doubt on the subject; virtually everyone agreed that however
desirable the reforestation of wastelands, it could never be commercially
profitable. The demand for timber is insatiable; the amount of timber used in
the construction of a Belfast White Star liner is said to equal the amount in a
fleet of old battleships. There was also a great demand for housing timber; but
even more for crates and other forms of packaging, whether beer barrels or
butter crates, fish crates, etc. (Farmers’ Gazette 8 Nov 1902). There was
also the value of belts of trees as shelter belts, either along fields, or to
the windward sides of farmhouses, besides their amenity value especially in
cities. Trees were planted along
Dublin’s principal
street, Sackville Street in 1897.
The Department of Agriculture
acquired the Avondale Estate in Wicklow to establish a School of Forestry. In
1907 a Forestry Commission was appointed by the Government to study the work of
reforesting Ireland. In 1919 a Forestry Commission for the whole of the United
Kingdom was established.
The Forestry Act (1919)
established a Forestry Commission for the United Kingdom; commissioners, of whom
two must have experience of forestry in Scotland, were appointed. Three of them
were to be paid; in Ireland the powers of the Department of Agriculture and
Technical Instruction with regard to forestry were transferred to it, and also
the powers under the Destructive Insects and Pests Acts (1877-1907) with regard
to forestry pests (Irish Law Times 1920 Statutes). Though it commenced
work planting trees in Tyrone in 1920, and work continued in both Northern and
Southern Ireland in the inter-war years, the main effort was not made until
after the Second World War. By 1920 the felling of trees on estates sold under
the Land Acts was in full swing, as either the landlords sold the timber
separately before the sale or the former tenants did so immediately afterwards.
The value of mature timber locked up in a well planted estate was often
considerable.
[Top]
Leases and Tenancies
The
conclusions which W.E. Vaughan reached in his doctoral thesis regarding landlord
and tenant relations in the post-Famine period are now universally accepted
(Vaughan, ‘Landlord and Tenant relations’, 216). The old nationalist propaganda
regarding oppressive evicting landlords was comprehensively discredited. He made
the following points. Rents were neither high nor frequently raised, even though
prices of agricultural products were rising. Nor were evictions frequent. When
they occurred it was almost always for non-payment of rent. Tenants in practice
had security of tenure on most estates. Nor were landlords backward in improving
their estates and allowing tenants to improve their farms. By Irish law, unlike
English law, it was the tenant who was responsible for ‘improvements’ to the
land he rented, constructing the buildings, fencing and draining. The rents were
correspondingly lower, but the tenant had a grievance that if his lease was not
renewed he got no compensation for fixed improvements, though if he improved his
livestock he could take it with him. But when non-farm investment is taken into
account, the provision of roads and railways, local markets, arterial drainage,
the maintenance of a police force and law and order, the provision of good bulls
and rams, and so on, it could be claimed that most of the increase in the
tenants’ income was due to investments by the landowners. Nor did actions of
landlords provoke widespread agrarian crime. Figures for agrarian crime were
low. Nor was there a link between the number of outrages and the number of
evictions. Nor did a change in the law giving tenants security of tenure cause a
great improvement in Irish farming. It was shown that farming in Ulster where
compensation for improvements was available the farming was worse than in
Munster and Leinster. Nor did farm production rise dramatically after 1881 when
tenants received security of tenure (Vaughan op. cit. This dense Article
should be studied in full; O’Grada,
Ireland,
255-6).
One
feature of land-holding in the post-Famine period was the shortness of leases.
The basic system of land-holding in the British Isles was that of ‘estates in
land’ dating from the feudal period. As English law was progressively applied in
Ireland and Scotland, chiefs came to hold their land directly from the crown,
and these estates were usually enormous. Following rebellions these lands were
transferred to tenants-in-chief of the crown in huge chunks. To get an income
from their lands, the tenant-in-chief broke up his estate into lesser units to
sub-tenants for a low rent and a long lease, usually of ninety nine years. (This
followed the earlier custom of sub-infeudation.) The sub-tenant then let the
land out in individual farms at somewhat higher rents for shorter leases, often
for three lives i.e. until the three sub-sub tenants named in the lease died.
Such a lease was regarded as conferring a ‘freehold’ for political purposes in
Ireland. A lease for thirty one years which was an equivalent period of time
conferred only a leasehold. The freehold could normally be extended
indefinitely, on the death of one of the ‘lives’ by paying a fine to substitute
another name (Keenan, Pre-Famine Ireland 155-9). The fine or fee
was a sum of money, often considerable, paid to the landlord on entering or
extending a lease, in order that the rent may be reduced OED.)
The original sub-tenant was usually
not a nobleman, and often not even a gentleman, and was usually called a
‘middleman’. As was not infrequently the case the tenant-in-chief resided on his
main estate in England and was called an ‘absentee landlord’. There was no Irish
law against further sub-letting, if the landlord or the middleman was deemed to
give his consent, so that in extreme cases there could be a chain of five
landlords with progressively shorter leases and higher rents between the
tenant-in-chief and the actual cultivator of the soil. This led to
extra-ordinary sub-division on particular estates where the cultivators of tiny
patches could be numbered in their thousands, and these were paying what was
called a ‘rack-rent’, the rack being almost the total produce of the holding for
a year. In this kind of series it is not obvious who is to be regarded as ‘the
landlord’ and who as ‘the tenant’. This did not matter much in practice for
people were graded by their status (nobleman, gentleman, farmer, etc.) and by
their income (Forty Shillings, Ten Pounds, Two Hundred pounds, etc.). But it did
matter when Acts to provide for the sale of land were passed. Most landlords and
larger tenants wished to root out sub-letting and associated rackrenting.
Rackrenting remained as a term of propaganda and political abuse long after the
practice ceased.
Land can be regarded as a common
good so that it is in the interest of the whole country or nation that it be
used as effectively as possible. Fragmentation into tiny holdings on the one
hand and socialist collective farming on the other hand proved equally
inefficient. It was considered that an estate farmed directly by the landlord
with sufficient capital could produce up to four times the amount of output as
one divided among a thousand cultivators. It should also be noted from this
point of view that rent, namely the landowner’s share of the output, is not
necessarily an evil provided he spends it. On the other hand, by constantly
raising rents in line with increasing returns from agriculture, the rent
stimulates output and so benefits the country as a whole as the landlord spends
his income on goods, services and taxes. Without this stimulus, and without the
threat of being replaced by a more energetic farmer, the peasant proprietor can
limit his output to what suits himself or to minimise his rent or taxes, and the
economy stagnates.
The original tenants-in-chief in the
eighteenth century gained nothing from the ever-increasing prices for
agricultural produce for they were paid only the original rent. It so happened
that many of these original leases came up for renewal early in the nineteenth
century so thereafter they only allowed short leases. Also the only way to stop
the sub-division was when the original head lease came up for renewal, for then
a clause could be inserted forbidding sub-letting. But inserting such a clause
involved ‘clearing’ an entire estate of thousands of the cultivators of tiny
patches, and there was a huge uproar when it was attempted. It would seem
however that a loophole was found, namely conacre. This meant renting individual
fields for less than a year. Conacre for eleven months but renewed every year
was the equivalent of an annual lease. At the same time, when Daniel O’Connell
led the Forty Shilling Freeholders to vote against their landlord, the whole
point of giving leases for lives ended. When the lease came up for renewal, a
lease for a number of years or even for one year renewed annually was
substituted. This became a great source of indignation to the more prosperous
tenant farmers who lost status and security, and led to prolonged campaigns
denouncing the iniquity of the system.
Between 1820 and 1850 great efforts
had been made by the landowners to establish some kind of rational structure.
Though not perfect, by 1850 a kind of sensible system had been developed.
Landlords brought in, originally from Scotland, agents to manage the letting of
farms rather than middlemen. (One result of this was that political rants
against middlemen were transferred to land agents.) Many impoverished estates
changed hands by being sold under the Encumbered Estates Act (1849). The chief
grievance now was the loss of the tenure for lives which affected the strong
farmers. Liberal governments tended to support the tenant farmers, while
Conservative governments supported the landowners. The tenants’ arguments have
been summarised in the opening paragraph of this section where it was also
indicated that none of their contentions were valid (Vaughan, above). The
Conservatives at the time always maintained that the arguments were false, and
that the interests of the landlords (and of the country) were being injured by
legislation that could do no good. There is no doubt nowadays the Gladstone’s
intended remedial legislation was based on false premisses.
In the past there was considerable
confusion between the struggle of the tenant farmers, many of them from Ulster
and many of them Protestant, to secure Tenant Right and the political struggle
of the Land League. By Tenant Right was meant certain demands that came to be
known as Tenant Right or ‘Ulster Custom’, or the ‘Three F’s (fair rent, free
sale, fixity of tenure). What they wanted was a return to the leases for lives
renewable forever, moderate rents which involved no competition for farms and
decided if possible by a neutral judge solely on the basis of agricultural
prices and not competition, and compensation for any improvements to the
landlord’s property if they made any improvement, if the lease was not renewed.
This they felt would equally benefit the landlords.
The landlords, mindful of the recent
past, wished to be able to recover their property within a reasonable time, to
be able to raise rents in line with improved agricultural prices, improved land
(for example by arterial drainage), or a bid from a prospective better farmer,
and if there was to be tenants’ claim for improvements, there should be a
countervailing landlord’s claim for dilapidation. If rents were to be arbitrated
the market value of its potential output should be the basis. The fair rent
should be the market rent. The landlords had no intention of allowing the
unlimited competition such as had occurred when unrestricted sub-letting led to
rack rents for this inevitably led to the deterioration of the soil, and
lessened the value of the estate. It would follow that an applicant for a vacant
tenancy who was young, who had sufficient capital to effect improvements, and
had shown success with improved methods of farming (perhaps in Scotland), would
be preferred to even a sitting tenant who lacked these attributes. Such an ideal
applicant might be difficult to find, so a sitting tenant who paid his rent
regularly and did not dilapidate the property excessively was likely to be left
in place. Problems of course arose when badly deteriorated estates were
purchased from bankrupt landlords through the Encumbered Estates Commission or
the Landed Estates Court. (Up to 1858 £23 million were spent on purchasing
bankrupt estates, probably affecting around 70,000 farms Curtis, History,
368.) The new owners were normally anxious to put their new estates on a sound
business footing though the tenants did not relish the necessary changes. These
were just general ideas through which each side tried to maximise the benefit to
itself, and rarely were demands pushed to extremes. Landlord and tenant
relations were on the whole tolerant and harmonious and the first two Land Acts,
those of 1860 and 1870 reflected this moderation.
Entirely different was the agitation
of the Land League. It was founded by former Fenian revolutionaries, and had a
political aim, to smash the financial and political power of the landlords. The
leaders of the Land League would then replace them politically in every county
in Ireland and a political regime similar to that of Tammany Hall would be
established. The agitation was primarily among the tenants with small holdings
in the West, and was closely connected with agrarian terrorism. The local
tenants themselves should decide what a fair rent was, and should pay no more.
With rents reduced to a trickle, the political power of the landlords would end.
Massive intimidation tried to prevent other applicants taking the farms of
tenants evicted for non-payment of rent, and also tried to make life a misery
for anyone who sided with the landlord. Anyone who defied the League for any
reason whatever was subjected to the same ‘boycott’. It was almost exclusively
Catholic in character, and almost immediately it came up against opposition not
only from landlords but from the mass of Protestants in Ireland who realised
what a Tammany Hall regime in Ireland would mean for themselves. For centuries
Protestants had controlled patronage and corruption in government. The aim of
the League was to seize them for the benefit of the Catholics: as was said to
put the boot on the other foot.
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Land Acts
The first Act passed dealing with
land, Rickard Deasy’s Landlord and Tenant Amendment (Ireland) Act (1860
attempted to codify the great mass of laws pertaining to landlords and tenants
and to base the relationship on contract. A straightforward process for
eviction, based on breach of contract, was established if the tenant was in
arrears by one full year. Deasy deserves more credit for this Act than he is
usually given. In establishing a farm tenancy as a simple contract it was doing
what Master and Servant legislation and Municipal Reform acts were doing around
this time, namely sweeping away ancient customs, laws, and precedents.
Compensation for improvements was not mentioned. This might have been the Act
that was needed but it was not the Act that the tenant farmers wanted.
Gladstone’s Land Act (1870 was a modest affair. It recognised tenant right and
Ulster Custom but did not define it. It was left to the tenant to prove that it
was in force in his area. It got legal compensation if the tenants were turned
out by the landlord, and for any improvements they allegedly made; no new rights
were given and none taken away from the landlords. The importance of this Act
was that it, like the Act the previous year disestablishing the Irish Church,
showed that Gladstone could be pressurised into further concessions. Included in
the Act were the ‘Bright Clauses’ inserted at the instance of John Bright. These
allowed the sale of tenancies to the tenants through the Landed Estates Court,
and allowed the Board of Works to advance two thirds of the agreed price at 5%
over thirty five years (Burke, Industrial History, 304).
A commission of enquiry which
became known as the Bessborough enquiry after its chairman, the 6th
Earl of Bessborough, reported in 1881, advising the repeal of the Land Act of
1870, and the enactment of a simple uniform act on the basis of fixity of
tenure, fair rents, and free sale. The Ulster Custom or the ‘Three Fs’ generally had the following
features;
1) Fair Rent:
the rent charged was a fair one not fixed by competitive bidding;
2) Fixity of
Tenure: the tenant could not be evicted so long as he paid his rent;
3) Free Sale:
the tenant could, with the approbation of the landlord, sell his tenant right;
all arrears of
rent must be paid off before such a transaction was completed.
This custom was
not recognised by law; however in general it was observed (Belfast Weekly
News 24 Jan 1901).
This was largely what the Land Act
(1881 contained. Fair rent for a defined period was to be fixed by an
independent arbitrator. Fixity of tenure was granted while the rent was paid.
Free sale meant that a tenant could sell the remainder of his lease to another
tenant with the landlord’s permission. If the landlord did not wish to renew the
lease he had to pay compensation to the tenant for his improvements. None of the
above was to apply if the tenant was in arrears. It was enacted that a Land
Court should be formed to fix judicial rents. Either landlord or tenant could
apply to the court, and the rent thus fixed was to last for fifteen years,
giving in effect a fifteen year lease. There was to be a Land Commission
composed of three commissioners, one of whom would have the status of a judge,
and there were to be assistant commissioners for each county. The assistant
commissioners were to be the people who decided in the first instance what a
fair rent should be. The landlord might deplore the dilapidation of his land but
he was made powerless to do anything about it.
The Act was more complex than this
summary and it was said that only half a dozen politicians fully understood it.
Parnell’s lieutenant, Tim Healy, was one of these and he got the ‘Healy Clause’
inserted and passed. This said that no rent could be charged on a tenant’s
improvements. Hugh Law, then the Irish Attorney General and shortly afterwards
Lord Chancellor, missed the point and did not challenge the clause (DNB
Healy, Law). If the tenant wished to purchase his holding, the commissioners
were to advance three quarters of the purchase price, and the purchase would
give a full legal title to the land. There were the usual exclusions, so that
those hopelessly in arrears with the rent could not apply. The Land Commission
was empowered to make advances for purchase of ¾ of the price at 5% over 35
years.
Had
this Act been passed thirty years earlier following the recommendations of the
earlier Devon Commission it might have done some good, with both landlords and
tenants trying to make it work as intended. But by now, the Land League was
active whose members were determined to smash their political opponents the
landlords and to use the Act to this end. The great flaw in the Act which became
apparent over time was that neither the rent nor the compensation were to be
fixed by the free market but by a court which followed arbitrary rules.
Arbitrary they were to the extent that they introduced factors that the free
market would not consider. This Act was described by Judge O’Connor Morris, a
County Court judge who had to administer the system, as “a clumsy and
ill-conceived attempt to make the Three F's the mould of the Irish land system.
Fair rent was to be settled by the tribunals of the state. Fixity of tenure was
to be created by subjecting nine-tenths probably of Irish tenancies to leases
for fifteen years, renewable practically for ever by the same tribunals, and
free sale was permitted under restrictions rather vexatious and troublesome than
of real value". Though it was not intended the judges felt it was their duty to
reduce rents which were already comparatively low, and reduced them again at
every fifteen-year valuation. So between 1881 and 1901 rents were reduced by
40%. The best landlords, those who spent most on improvements and had the lowest
rents lost most, and the thrifty industrious farmer who paid his way and did not
run down his farm gained least (Belfast Weekly News 31 Jan 1901). All
rents in Ireland now tended to be settled by litigation; nobody gained from this
except solicitors who registered a 30% increase since the passing of the Act.
Also the Act reduced the incentive of the landlord to improve his estate. After
1847 Irish landlords borrowed £7 million from the Board of Works for landlord's
improvements to their estates besides any money they had of their own; but since
the 1881 Act there as no point in borrowing (Warder 2 March 1901).
The commissioners were not equal to
the demands of the task in the face of the No Rent campaign led by capable
lawyers and terrorists. The first decisions were made by sub-commissioners in
the various counties. These were ill-trained and ill-instructed, so appeal
followed appeal to the great enrichment of lawyers (ibid). The Act itself
gave no indication what a 'fair rent’ should be, and the Commissioners
themselves never attempted a definition. They did not take into account the
Report of a Commission [Bessborough Commission] which said that rack-renting
was extremely rare; they should have taken into account estates where rents had
not been raised for a long time; they should have taken into account not only
the state of the land, but whether its run-down condition was the tenant's
fault; they should have foreseen that under the 1881 Act the tenant had a direct
financial interest in running down his holding. The Commissioners should have
given the greatest latitude to the landlord when he appealed, but did not do so;
they should have ensured that the sub-commissioners were capable, well-trained,
and properly remunerated, but did not do so; these sub-commissioners or valuers
were in fact the court of first instance.
Judge O’Connor Morris continued:
having neglected to make a definition of "fair rent", the Land Commission on
this subject ran into the grossest errors. It excluded the principle of
competition in considering the standard for rent; it refused to allow the rents
of land in a neighbouring district to be any evidence of the 'fair rent' on a
given farm; it permitted rents to be fixed on lands deteriorated through the
tenant's default and even deteriorated for this very purpose. Rents were reduced
to an extent not contemplated by any statesman, or by any well-informed person
who knew Ireland; they were fixed on principles which did the landlord wrong.
Agriculture declined in many districts especially as to arterial drainage and to
the breeds of most farming animals, for a large expenditure was made by the
landlords on this account. This, as a matter of course, has ceased, and the
tenants, as a rule have done simply nothing. In addition land bound in the
fetters of a vicious tenure has been thrown into a kind of mortmain; it is all
but impossible to sell an Irish estate on the open market, or even to borrow
money on it (Warder 6 Oct 1900). Nor was any attempt made to value the
land at market prices before and after, or to penalise a tenant who had not made
sufficient improvements in the course of fifteen years. The court reduced and
fixed the rent for a first term of 15 years, and reduced it again for the second
term.
Though the Act was intended as an
aid to the improvement of agriculture, there is no evidence that it had any such
effect. Shifting political influence and control of patronage and corruption was
done more easily by establishing county councils elected by popular vote. Its
most immediate effect was to increase the terrorist activities of the Land
League. Ironically, it made the landlords more ready to sell their tenanted
lands to the tenants just at a time when the returns from land were beginning to
fall sharply. The landlords were well-advised to sell when they did.
The Conservatives came to realise
that Land Purchase was the only way out of the mess. Under the Land Purchase Act
(1885 (called the Ashbourne Act after the Lord Chancellor, Lord Ashbourne) the
Government would advance to the tenant the whole cost of his holding to
be paid back over 49 years. The tenant paid £4 for every £100, of which £3 2/6
represented the annual interest on the land and 17/6 was placed in a sinking
fund to pay off the capital. The Land Commission was empowered to purchase
estates in the Landed Estates court (Encumbered Estates court) when such were
available for the purpose of re-selling them to the sitting tenants (Beckett,
Modern Ireland, 394; Weekly Irish Times 21 February 1903; Burke,
Industrial History, 307). The repayment charge on the tenant amounted to
about 70% of his present rent. The £5 million voted for the purchase was soon
exhausted and further grants had to be made. This method was very expensive to
the Government who paid up front and the debt would not be paid off for 49
years. The total amount advanced under three Land Purchase Acts up to 1903 was
£25.5 million which purchased 71,754 farms (Weekly Irish Times 5 August
1905).
Arthur Balfour’s Land Purchase Act (1891) was similar but the landlord selling
was paid in guaranteed Land Stock paying 2¾% per annum which was also
exchangeable for Government Consolidated stock. The Act was emended in 1896, but
the principle of being paid in stock with a fluctuating price was unpopular. The
point in the Act from Parliament’s point of view was that re-payment of
annuities by the purchaser would commence before the Government had to make
payments to the landlords. In all these Acts there was no question of compulsory
sale or purchase. The demesne lands, those parts of an estate not let out in
tenancies, were never purchased.
The basic principle of the Land Act
(1903 or Wyndham Act was that Government offered a bonus to landlords who would
sell, and tenants would make repayments over 68 years. Landlords were paid in
guaranteed Land Stock, saleable on the Stock Exchange. Landlords were to be
encouraged to sell all their land leased to tenants at the same time, and the
sale could proceed if three quarters of the tenants on an estate agreed. The
price of each farm was to be within a band of from 18½ years purchase to 24½
years purchase on farms with first term rents under the Land Act (1881) and from
21½ to 27²/³ years purchase for second term rents fixed after 1896. This roughly
equalised the purchase prices of farms on an estate. The money was to be
advanced by the Government to the purchasers and the repayments over 68½ years
meant a return of 3½% to the owners of the Land Stock (Lyons,
Ireland Since the Famine,
219). About ¾ of all tenancies were purchased under the 1903 Act.
Finally, after two independent
parliaments were set up both decided to tidy up the remnants of unpurchased
tenancies by compulsory purchase.
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Drainage
Drainage rather than irrigation was the great need in Ireland, and progressive
landlords and tenants always made sure their land was drained. The Irish
Government encouraged drainage as one of the best means for supporting an
ever-increasing population on the land. Drainage on a given estate was often not
easy because of the character of the worn-down surface of Ireland. The
water-level of whole areas of marshy or boggy land often could not be lowered
until a rocky cill was blasted out miles away on some other estate. In the
1840s, even before the Famine, Drainage Acts were passed allowing the Board of
Works to give loans for drainage schemes, and enabling landowners to put in
stone or tile drains and to make the necessary outfalls on other estates.
The
Land Improvements Acts (1864, 1869 applicable to England, Scotland and Ireland,
allowed the advance of public money as loans for the straightening, deepening
and widening of existing drains; the embanking of land from rivers or seas, the
enclosing of lands and straightening of fences; making permanent farm roads and
tramways or navigable canals for the improvement of the estate; the erection of
labourers’ cottages, farmhouses and other farm buildings or the improvement of
existing dwellings and buildings; the planting of shelter; the construction of
engine houses, waterwheel sawmills, kilns, watercourses, and sluices which will
increase the value of the agricultural land; the construction of permanent
jetties or landing places on the sea coasts or the banks of navigable rivers or
lakes suitable for the transport of lime or cattle or otherwise beneficial to
agriculture. If the landlord made the improvement he was entitled to place a
rent-charge on the various farms (Irish Law Times 28 April 1900).
The proprietors of a river basin
were empowered to form themselves into a drainage district. The Board of Works,
after enquiries and the examination of their plan could constitute them as a
drainage board; the board then appointed a secretary, an engineer, and a
solicitor, and employed a contractor to carry out the works; funds could be
borrowed from the Board of Works. When the works were completed the Board of
Works made up an account of the expenditure and published an assessment award
which assessed each proprietor with his acreage share of the expenditure, to be
repaid by instalments spread over a number of years. In practice often the work
was initiated by an engineer as a speculation who then organised the
land-owners; he was then appointed the contractor to carry out the approved
works, getting the usual 5% commission on the whole. This was perhaps
unavoidable because proprietors were normally unwilling to go to the great
expense of preparing the plans themselves.
A defect was that the only persons
recognised as proprietors were owners in fee or fee farm [fee farm: land held in
fee simple subject to perpetual fixed rent]; no tenant, whether by lease or
yearly was recognised in the statute. In conformity with this principle
repayments were assessed only on the proprietors; there was provision for
assessing a portion of the repayment on the lease-holders, but not on the yearly
tenants whose rent was varied annually. The Land Acts totally ignored this Act;
the Land Commissioners did not recognise any improvement to the land further
than 40 feet from the river; any improvement in drainage further than that was
attributed to the tenant; the landlord’s expense was therefore awarded to the
tenant. With this condition the landowners were simply being robbed. It was also
totally unfeasible to organise all the tenants on several estates even if it
were lawful.
Another defect was that the
repayment rate was assessed on land lying not more than five feet above the
original level of the main channel, the owners of the worst land; as the
benefits were far wider, the assessment should have been wider. This has
resulted in a cost, according to the calculations of the Board of Works at an
average cost of £7 1s 6d per statute acre, giving an annual instalment of 8s 10d
per Irish acre; with judicial rents being given as low as £1 an acre for even
better land the burden on the proprietors is great (New Irish Jurist 18
April 1902).
The last defect was with regard to
the necessary acquisition of parcels of land to complete the works; it does not
seem that the framers of the Act knew what they were doing, at least as far as
Ireland was concerned. Every leaseholder, yearly tenant, and occupier
immediately saw scope for some claim, and the expense became enormous; to give
one example, the arbitrator framed his award on the basis of £20 per Irish acre
to the tenant even though the piece of land taken was virtually useless for
agricultural purposes (New Irish Jurist 25 April 1902).
Despite these drawbacks, quite large
drainage schemes were put in place in the second part of the nineteenth century,
especially in the fifties. The number of Drainage Districts formed in Ireland
was 60; the area of flooded land dealt with was 128,638 acres; this cost a total
of £961,235 or £1s 6 d per statute acre, towards which £50,725 was recovered
from Grand Juries. The largest, that of the Suck in Co. Galway, was peculiar in
that half the expenses were placed the proprietors and half on the occupiers.
The costliest at £181,557 for 15,327 statute acres was that on Lough Erne. The
matter was considered by the royal commission on public works of 1887 chaired by
Sir James Allport of the [English] Midland Railway which made several
recommendations with regard to the legislation which were not pursued (New
Irish Jurist 2 May 1902). A major problem, for which no easy solution was
found, was the drainage of lands around Lough Neagh and the Lower Bann. In the
20th century both northern and southern governments pursued various
schemes.
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Other Aspects
Farming Societies and Agricultural Shows
If the development and
modernisation of Irish farming was measured by the enthusiasm for establishing
farming societies, we must conclude that it proceeded by fits and starts. In the
early years of the nineteenth century and again in the 1840s new societies were
formed, but after a number of years became inactive. The Royal Dublin Society
founded in 1731 was still active but the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland
founded in 1840 was moribund, and in 1886 was amalgamated with the Royal Dublin
Society. Large parts of the grounds of Leinster House, the headquarters of the
Royal Dublin Society which they had purchased from the Duke of Leinster were
taken over for building a national library, a national museum, and a national
gallery, while the Royal Dublin Society moved its shows to a new property at
Ballsbridge.
In
1868 the Royal Dublin Society held its first Horse Show to promote the
development of the various kinds of horses being bred in Ireland, farm horses,
riding horses, carriage horses etc. It has become an international event and a
high point in the social calendar. A Spring Agricultural Show for Irish
livestock and agricultural machinery is also held and is chiefly of interest to
the farming community (White, The Royal Dublin Society).
The
next great fillip to the development of Irish agriculture came with the
co-operative movement. Though its influence was not as great in Ireland as in
other countries, and there was great indifference to it in many rural circles,
nobody could ignore it. One result which followed it, even if not necessarily
caused by it, was the transformation of agriculture in Ulster. Around 1850 the
province of Ulster with regard to the quality of its agriculture was ranked
third, above Connaught but behind Munster and Leinster. The indicator chosen was
crude but significant, the amount of weeds in the fields. By 1920 the standard
of farming in Ulster was probably the highest in Ireland and the fields the
cleanest. Part of this transformation may be attributable to the decline of the
flax crop as more and more better-quality flax was imported. For over a century
flax had provided Ulster farmers with an excellent cash crop so they had little
stimulus to improve other crops. The growing cities and towns provided an
increasing market for other produce. The climate and soil of Ulster was much the
same as in the rest of Ireland except that it was outside the region where wheat
could be successfully grown in most years. Oats was the great cereal crop in
Ulster and by 1914 Ulster (nine counties) was producing half of the total crop.
Ulster farmers led the way towards fruit-growing. Agricultural shows were
established in Newry and Carlow at the end of the century after having lapsed
for 20 years (Farmers’ Gazette 10 August 1901). In 1854 an agricultural
society called the North Eastern Agricultural Society embracing the counties
Antrim, Down, Armagh and Monaghan was established.
Lands at Balmoral
along the road between
Belfast and Lisburn were acquired in
1895; and a sum of £30,000 was expended making the showgrounds second only to
those at Ballsbridge; in 1903 the name was changed to the Ulster Agricultural
Society, and given the title royal the following year. By 1920 the show of the
Royal Ulster Agricultural Society (RUAS) was regarded as equal to that of the
Royal Dublin Society.
Farming Education
The system of teaching
farming and marketing can only be described as deplorable. Sons learned from
their fathers and daughters from their mothers. The National Board of Education
had decided that the basics of farming should be taught to every schoolboy. The
National Board established an agricultural college, the Albert College, at
Glasnevin in 1838 principally to train teachers in farming, and then began to
develop model agricultural schools with ten-acre farms attached. (Model schools
were primary schools where the principal teacher was a trained and approved
teacher where instruction in teaching and teaching practice could be given to
aspirants.) There were also ordinary national schools with some land attached
where there was a teacher trained to teach agriculture. The existence of these
depended entirely on there being a local patron willing to donate the use of his
land. There were benefits for the local landlord (before the Land Acts) for he
could get a more skilled workforce, more progressive and capable farmers. The
tenant farmers believed that the chief purpose of teaching agriculture was to
increase the rents. This was of course true but ignored the fact that the chief
beneficiary was the tenant farmer himself (Bell and Watson, Irish Farming
10-12). However, the mid-century was the heyday of laissez-faire and it was
objected that the state was competing directly against private colleges, so the
teaching of agriculture virtually ceased in Ireland. Irish farmers saw no need
to support private education in agriculture even if they did see some point in a
classical education. Progressively, the schools dropped the subject, so that by
1883 there was only one left besides the Albert College. The one that survived
became the Munster Institute. The latter was locally funded and chiefly taught
dairying and butter-making to girls. Though the Albert College was allowed to
survive the number of its pupils was restricted to twenty, i.e. prospective
teachers. Ordinary national schools teaching farming actually increased and
arrived at the number of 137 or about 2% of all national schools
managers (Dowling, Irish Education, 128-9).
The two institutes were transferred
to the new Department of Agriculture and Technical instruction in 1899. By 1900
both were giving courses in dairy science mainly to women students of which
there were 50 or 60 each year with an excessive number of applicants for each
course. The Department speedily took steps to develop them, and also established
new colleges beginning with one at Athenry in Co. Galway. Another was
established at Conakilty, Co. Cork, and apprenticeships were made available at
them. Others were established in Ulster. By this time the Royal College of
Science was also teaching courses in agriculture, and instruction was now being
provided at three levels (Weekly Irish Times 3, 10 July 1920). Some
religious orders like the Cistercians and Salesians also taught practical
courses in agriculture. Though the numbers being taught were still quite small,
agricultural education was at last being taken seriously in Ireland. By 1920 The
Queen’s University of Belfast, aided by a bequest and the Department of
Agriculture set about establishing a degree course in agriculture.
Farm Labour
It is difficult to generalise
on the quality of farm labour for the range spanned from the very best to the
very worse. Some were little better than unskilled labour. Some were permanently
employed on large farms, while others had small farms but could be employed at
seasons of intensive labour like sowing and harvesting. It is likely that the
most skilled farm workers were those who were permanently employed on large
farms. They would have been taught a whole range of skills over the years,
ploughing, reaping, fencing, draining, felling and sawing timber, storing crops,
milking, calving, lambing and so on. It was a matter of pride for the skilled
ploughman to direct a pair of horses in a dead straight line across a field, and
then lay every furrow exactly parallel to it with no tufts of grass appearing
between them. His handiwork would be reviewed critically by every passer-by.
They were also expected to be able to handle all the machinery the owner of the
farm had bought.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century there were many complaints about the
lack of farm labour. Most labourers had a better chance of earning more, getting
married, and raising a family if they emigrated. In those parts of Ireland which
had turned to raising beef-cattle labourers skilled in tillage scarcely existed.
Many labourers were hired for the season only, usually six months, and hiring
fairs were held in May and November where wages and contracts were negotiated.
They survived to the end of the nineteenth century in Ulster. Migratory labour
for the summer season to farms in England and Scotland was very common before
1850, but had declined by the end of the century, and was then largely confined
to counties Mayo and Donegal. They were regarded as mostly hard-working and
reliable, worked up to 16 hours a day for about 10 weeks, and sent home
remittances regularly (Farmers’ Gazette 29 March 03).
There were complaints that the
shortage of labour had been keeping down the development of dairying over the
past 20 years. One of the great problems of dairying
is that it needs to be done
seven days a week, 365 days in the year; all other kinds of work have breaks,
and no servants will undertake this kind of work if they can possibly avoid it.
At present contractors and public bodies are paying at the rate of 6 pence or 7
pence an hour for casual labour with earnings of 24 shillings a week; while farm
labour is paid 3 pence an hour [12 shillings a week] in winter rising to 6 pence
in harvest time. For those working in dairies there are no days off, and the day
is also longer, so the labourer is working from 12 to 14 hours a day. In some
cases it is worse; if the milk has to be delivered fresh in time for breakfast
the milker must be there at 3 a.m. The author was well aware too of the fact
that 12 shillings in the country equalled 21 shillings in the town, but the fact
remained that farm work is hard and the hours are long (Farmers’ Gazette
2 November 1901).
In the twentieth century efforts
were made to spread trade unions among farm labourers. The Farmers’ Gazette
in 1920 claimed that this reduced the number of dairy farms because the farmers
could not risk a strike (23 October 20). In 1919 the Kildare farm labourers'
strike took place with damage and intimidation: non-union workers were
intimidated, crops trampled, and haycocks overthrown (Weekly Irish Times
26 July 1919). There were skirmishes between farmers and labourers also in Co.
Meath. Farm labourers’ trade unionism, organised by Joseph Arch, began in
England and the Warwickshire Agricultural Labourers’ Union was formed in 1872.
It was followed by the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union which after a
strong start declined (DNB
Arch). The Kildare strike immediately caused bad relations between
farmers and labourers. In actual practice the take-home wage of a labourer was
considerably higher than the nominal. The farmers retaliated by refusing to take
any union man; though
since then trade unions have
been everywhere recognised (Farmers’ Gazette 19 June 20).The wages
of agricultural labourers were in fact fixed by the Agricultural Wages Board
under the Corn Production Act (1917) (Farmers’ Gazette 6 March 20).
(These violent farm strikes must be placed in the context of the terrorism for
political or social reasons by other groups at the time.) The organisation of
farm labourers caused the farmers to form their own organisation, the Irish
Farmers’ Union in 1919. Farmers’ organisations became very important after the
Second World War.
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