Munster, and all the
grazing Counties; it being absolutely impossible for it to subsist,
without Tillage and Hands, which ever go together. It cannot be the
Profit, that endears Grazing to the Southern Provinces; since many
excellent Authors, and particularly Mr. _Dobbs_, have clearly
demonstrated the vast Difference, betwixt Tillage and Grazing, as to
the real Gain by each; and it is clear we lose one Year with another,
200,000_l._ to our Country, by this impolitick Turn to Stocks. This is
enough in Conscience, one wou'd imagine for this unthinking Kingdom;
but we must add to this Loss also, the Multitudes, we force Abroad or
starve at Home, and the real Gain we shou'd make by their Arts and
Labour, and the encrease of Houses, Marriages, Children, Health, Wealth
and Plenty, which they naturally bring with them. If our wise Graziers
wou'd once consider these Things, and that our Northern Colonies in
_America_, are supplying those in the South with Beef, and threatning
to beat us by Degrees out of that Trade, they will perceive how
necessary it is, to have a Law for Tillage, and that without it, we may
say with the _AEgyptians_, 'We be all dead Men.' This I am sure of, and
I will only add that 'tis in vain to make Laws, for encouraging our
Linen, or to expect to keep Money enough in our Kingdom, to pay our
Rents, or circulate Trade, when such prodigious Sums, go out annually
for Grain, by which, and the vast Importation of _French_ Wine, we are
now actually on the very Brink of Bankruptcy and Ruin.

SWIFT. I know no better way to convince any one, of the superior
Advantages, arising from Tillage, compar'd to those by Grazing, then to
make him consider the Circumstances of the People in _Ulster_, and
those in the other Provinces. In the first, all are laborious, all are
well Cloath'd, well Fed, well Housed and Taught; in the last, all Lazy,
Naked, Starv'd, Lodg'd in dirty Hutts, and almost Illiterate. The
superior Advantages which the North so eminently enjoys, proceed not so
much from the different Genius's, of the two opposite Religions, which
prevail there, and in the South, (tho' that is something) but from
Tillage and Labour, and all the Arts 'tis employ'd in, being fixt in
_Ulster_. This shews the Care we shou'd take, to encourage Tillage in
this half starv'd Island, and the wisest Nations have ever thought they
cou'd not take too much about it. _Aulus Gellius_ tells us, that the
wise _Romans_ kept Inspectors, over