| October 12th, to Lord de Montalt's at Dundrum, a place which his Lordship has ornamented in the modern stile of improvement: the house was situated in the midst of all the regular exertions of the last age. Parterres, parapets of earth, straight walks, knots and clipt hedges, all which he has thrown down, with an infinite number of hedges and ditches, filled up ponds, &c. and opened one very noble lawn around him, scattered negligently over with trees, and cleared the course of a choaked up river, so that it flows at present in a winding course through the grounds. He continues this work of dressing the fields contiguous to him, to give them a neat appearance, and advances in it every year, even his tillage lands are all kept in the same neat manner, with fences new done, and the whole carrying the most cultivated appearance. His Lordship's system. of husbandry is an admirable one; it is in the great outline to take farms into his own hands, as the leases expire, to keep them for improvement, and when done to relet them. This is the true agriculture for profit for a landlord; he has upon this system improved near 2000 acres. Throwing down the old miserable fences which split the farms into little scraps of fields; and made new ditches for drains and water-courses, disposed the new fields to the best advantage, drained them with stone drains where wet, broke up such of the grass as was bad, cultivated it enough to bring it into proper order, and laid it down again to meadow; there can not be a better, system, or more calculated at the same time to ornament a country, and improve his own estate. His Lordship has also followed several practices in farming, which have proved of great service; among, others, keeping hogs upon clover. He had a mind to shew the country man that they might keep many hogs (a. very advantageous stock to them) by means of clover; he kept four sows and twenty-four pigs the summer through on one acre, by which he made 10l. produce. A clear proof that the husbandry would be highly advantageous with this view. Turnips he cultivates upon. a very large scale; was the first who had them here on stubbles; he has .thirty or forty acres, and every year has a large quantity; drills them with a very cheap simple drill, his own invention, and thins them out by hand, or hoes them. I viewed his crop, and found them very regular, and of a good size; with the leaves of the whole of a remarkable deep green, without any yellow ones: more so, I think, than is common in England, and I observed the same circumstance with the other crops I saw. He uses them for feeding and fattening sheep, giving them on dry grass land; also for stall-feeding // bullocks, and finds the advantage of both uses so great, that he does not know what he should do without them. [ pp. 322-323] |
