that had been made since my last visit, through Ballyvourney, a wild
and mountainous district, formerly impassable. The territorial
improvements there are now matter of history, it having been proved
before the Commissioners of Land Inquiry, that land, valued at 3s. 9d.
per acre, had been made permanently worth L.4 per acre by a small
outlay, which, with all expenses, rent, and interest of money, was
repaid in three years.

The land had been deep turf (peat), and all but useless for
agricultural purposes. By drainage, cultivation, and irrigation,
however, it was made to produce the finest meadow grass, sold annually
by public auction for from L.4 to L.6 per acre; and sometimes it
yielded a second, and even a third crop. The great secret of this
improvement was, that the then proprietor gave his steward, who was
likewise his relation, a permanent interest in his outlay, by letting
him the land on lease for ever. In consequence of his doing so, the
very worst land, judging by the surface, has been made equal in value
to town fields; and in the progress of this work, the wildest race
perhaps in the world, have now become a civilised and industrious
people. Mr C---- has sold his interest in the improvements for
L.10,000, calculated, on the average profit of past years, at twenty
years' purchase.

When he first undertook the work, he had every difficulty to contend
with: the people were unused to labour, and so wild and savage, that
no stranger dared to settle among them. I was told that when the first
land-steward was seen at the chapel in a dress which denoted him to be
a stranger, he heard a man behind him telling another in Irish--which
he supposed to be unknown to the stranger--the part of his neck in
which he would plant a deadly wound before he got home. The steward