ove
three-fourths. Have changed it for the manufacture of coarse green
linens, for the London market, from 6d. to 9d. a yard, twenty-seven
inches wide; but the number of manufactures in general much lessened.

Rode to the mouth of Cork Harbour; the grounds about it are all fine,
bold, and varied, but so bare of trees, that there is not a single view
but what pains one in the want of wood. Rents of the tract south of the
river Caragoline, from 5s. to 30s.; average, 10s. Not one man in five
has a cow, but generally from one to four acres, upon which they have
potatoes, and five or six sheep, which they milk, and spin their wool.
Labour 5d. in winter, 6d. in summer; many of them for three months in the
year live on potatoes and water, the rest of it they have a good deal of
fish. But it is remarked, at Kinsale, that when sprats are most
plentiful, diseases are most common. Rent for a mere cabin, 10s. Much
paring and burning; paring twenty-eight men a day, sow wheat on it and
then potatoes; get great crops. The soil a sharp, stony land; no
limestone south of the above river. Manure for potatoes, with sea-weed,
for 26s., which gives good crops, but lasts only one year. Sea-sand much
used; no shells in it. Farms rise to two or three hundred acres, but are
hired in partnership.

Before I quit the environs of Cork, I must remark that the country on the
harbour I think preferable, in many respects, for a residence, to
anything I have seen in Ireland. First, it is the most southerly part of
the kingdom. Second, there are very great beauties of prospect. Third,
by much the most animated, busy scene of shipping in all Ireland, and
consequently, fourth, a ready price for every product. Fifth, great
plenty of excellent fish and wild fowl. Sixth, the neighbourhood of a
great city for objects of convenience.

September 25. Took the road to Nedeen, through the wildest region of
mountains that I remember to have seen; it is a dreary but an interesting
road. The various horrid, grotesque, and unusual forms in which the
mountains rise and the rocks bulge; the immense height of some distant
heads, which rear above all the nearer scenes, the torrents roaring in
the vales, and breaking down the mountain sides, with here and there a
wretched cabin, and a spot of culture yielding surprise to find human
beings the inhabitants of such a scene of wildness, altogether keep the
traveller's mind in an agitation and suspense. These