Plantagenet kings would have been still more frequent, and their armies still more strong than they were. However, in these times of peace and settlement, so far indeed as relates to the European world, I think it will be admitted that a better locality could hardly have been selected for the exhibition of your Society, with all our green island as a back country to furnish its evidence of agricultural advancement, and inviting the whole outside world to send its products in through your port and noble river. Owing to the time at which these annual exhibitions are held, I am empowered to gain the earliest insight into an abstract of the agricultural statistics for the year just closed, which are always furnished by the industry and under the enlightened superintendence of the Registrar-General, Mr. Donnelly. This is a branch of knowledge in which our opposite neighbours in old England are still content to lag far behind you in Ireland. I will only present you with a very short summary of the leading results of what has been ascertained respecting the growth of cereal crops and green crops, and the quantity of live stock in the year that has just closed as compared with the year immediately preceding. In the growth of wheat crops in the year ending in 1857, as compared with the year ending in 1856, there is an increase of the acres under cultivation of 34,000; in barley and rye crops of 27,000 acres. This is met by a decrease in the quantity of acres under oats to the extent of 55,000. But the whole increase of the cereal crops in 1857, as compared with 1856, may be reckoned at 3,000 acres. With respect to green crops, there is an increase of 41,000 acres under cultivation for the potato. In other green crops, except turnips, in which there has been a small decrease, there is an increase of about 8,000 acres; and, on the whole, the total increase of acres under cultivation for green crops is 49,000. The increase in the number of acres under meadow and clover amounts to 65,000; and the total increase in the extent of land under crops in Ireland this year, as compared with the last year, is 105,000 acres. With respect to the quantity of live stock in Ireland, there is an increase in the number of horses of 27,000, of cattle 30,000; and there is an increase in the number of pigs to the extent of 332,000; but that is met by a decrease in the number of sheep amounting to 241,000. This decrease in the number of sheep seems to me to be worthy of your consideration. I do not know to what causes it is exactly to be attributed. Perhaps the most pleasant cause to which to attribute it is the great demand for mutton, and in consequence of which there has been a premature run upon lean sheep. Now, these results seem to me, though on the whole of a satisfactory and encouraging character, not to be such as should make us content with the state of advancement to which you have already attained, but such as to stimulate you to continued and increased exertions in those pursuits which are healthful for the body, good for the mind, which we may be sure are public-spirited and patriotic, and which we may venture also to hope, though perhaps in a less exalted strain, will be found to be self-rewarding and remunerative. I do not know whether it will be reckoned one of the proper functions of a Viceroy to use the office of admonition, as well as the more grateful and royal office of approval. Perhaps this may be one of the uses of a Viceroy which we have heard called in question. A Viceroy may admonish where a Sovereign only could approve. Well, I have heard it insinuated, Gentlemen, that even in this famed county of Waterford, which I dare say may afford the same condition of things as many of the other counties of Ireland, that while there has been a very marked improvement within the two or three last years, both in tillage and in stock, in drainage, and in the raising of fences, yet still landlords and tenants are to be found who allow themselves to be negligent about the state of open main drains. It is a subject, I take it, of very intimate concern to the well-being of their estates; and I also think that, notwithstanding the active and even enthusiastic exertions of my friend Mr. Donnelly— whose many public services I am happy to see Her Majesty has lately been pleased to recognise, although some think not quite as appropriately as they might have been made-Companion of the Bath, and not of the Thistle-still it is feared that, notwithstanding these exertions, the actual surface of Ireland does still continue to exhibit more than at least its proper proportion of weeds. I know that the total extinction of weeds must be a work of time, and of gradual and continued effort, like all other great works. But, Gentlemen, Delhi has not fallen yet, as far as we know, and Irish weeds are not yet extirpated, and I believe the one to be as essential to the real regeneration of Irish agriculture as the other is to the martial glory and stability of the empire. With respect to the exhibition of this day, I believe we shall all be justified in regarding it with unmixed feelings of approval and complacency; and I am sure that there can be but one opinion as to the admirable character of the arrangements, and of the accommodation that has been supplied. However, Gentlemen, on these points you will have more precise and discriminating opinions from those who are far more competent to speak upon such subjects than I can be. I find that in the course of the session, the labours of which are not yet brought to a close, I was something very like denounced, because it was presumed that I could distinguish a cow from a sheep. I do not know what will be said of my Viceregal degeneracy to-day, when it becomes bruited that I have had-what I consider a great honour-that I have had a prize assigned to me for a breeding sow. However, Gentlemen, I consider that a very shallow criticism which would represent an interest in agriculture and a pride in its advancement as qualities not desirable in an Irish ruler; for you cannot take into consideration the whole condition and circumstances of Ireland-herf ertile but varied soil-her wealth of rivers and harbours-the habits and character of her population, and even her changeful climate, and her weeping skies (which, however, have been in such happy suspension this day)—you cannot take all these features and characteristics of Ireland into consideration without coming to the conviction that agriculture is the special field for the development of Ireland's prosperity, and I will even add of Ireland's greatness. I consider her destinies are very much bound up in the manner in which she turns to advantage the capacities with which Providence has endowed both her soil and her people; and if this was the wish of the latest Viceroy-a case, however, I am far from wishing to anticipateI should feel neither regret nor shame if that wish could be embodied in the form of prosperity to Irish agriculture. The EARL OF CARLISLE again rose, and said : MY LORDS AND Gentlemen, : I am sure you will continue your indulgence to me so far as to allow me to propose a toast to you. When that toast has been proposed, it will need no other commendation than itself. I alluded just now, in the observations which I addressed to you, to an old English Sovereign, King Henry II. With that monarch came over to these shores the ancestors of our noble Chairman; and most pleasing it is to see that the descendants of the armed invaders of this country may now be reckoned amongst the most prominent of its supporters and ornaments. The noble Chairman who presides over us this evening has made the princely domain-where, like a true-born and loyal-hearted Irishman, he so much resides-not more remarkable for all its features of natural beauty and its glorious swells of wood and upland, than it now is for the improvement of its agricultural capacities, and the comfort of a thriving tenantry and a grateful peasantry. In gratitude to the Noble Lord for all that he has given to Ireland, and, permit me to add, for all that he has brought to Ireland, I may ask you now to drink "The health of the Marquis of Waterford." ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF IRELAND. GREAT ANNUAL CATTLE SHOW-DUNDALK. [JULY 27TH, 1859.] THE BANQUET. TOAST: "The Health of the Earl of Carlisle, and Prosperity to Ireland." HE Chairman, the EARL OF ERNE, rose, and said:-He felt THE extreme pleasure in proposing the health of a Noble Lord who had held the reins of government in Ireland for several years, with a short interval. He meant His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant. He (Lord Erne) could state, without fear of contradiction, that there never was a nobleman who presided over Ireland more anxious than Lord Carlisle to do everything in his power to promote the welfare of the country, and to promote agriculture. With a keen and perceptive eye His Excellency soon found that Ireland was an agricultural country, and therefore used every exertion in his power to advance agriculture in all its branches. He had done the Society the honour of becoming its Vice-patron; he had even been a large subscriber to it, and for the time he held the office of Secretary he had attended every one of the Shows of the Society. As they all knew the character of His Excellency, he (Lord Erne) would do no more than simply propose the "Health of His Excellency the Earl of Carlisle," coupling with it the good old national saying, "Prosperity to Ireland.” The EARL OF CARLISLE rose, and said :- MY LORD ERNE, MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN, I am extremely obliged to you for the cordial reception you have been pleased to give the toast which has just been submitted to your notice. As your Noble President has said, this is by no means the first time I find myself the visitor and the guest of the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland, and I have the satisfaction of seeing that you are not inclined to consider me a stranger. Indeed, my fears might have run in a contrary direction. I might have apprehended that just as by the judicious regulations of your show yards the same animals are not allowed to compete for an indefinite number of times, but that there are strict limitations of "two year olds," "three year olds," and, "four year olds," which must not be transgressed, I might have apprehended that I should be considered too stale an object to be produced again on this occasion. Most happy shall I feel myself, in connexion with my renewed term of office in Ireland, if I shall happen to be classed amongst that species of stock which no longer is entitled to compete for the prize, but is entered simply as "commended." However this may be, my noble friend has rightly assumed that I must feel great pleasure in finding myself again amongst the members of your flourishing and vigorous Society, and especially to have the privilege of being at an exhibition which, in all respects, has been so entirely worthy of their past renown and their advancing usefulness. Nearly all the points connected with the present Show, and with the immediate condition of the Society's affairs, I clearly shall do best to leave to those who, from familiar acquaintance with the whole subject of Irish agriculture, and from their having been, unlike myself, enabled by continuous and unbroken residence to keep their attention directed to the current transactions of the Society, shall be thus qualified to speak with weight and authority on an occasion like the present. I may permit myself to say, in passing, that the spot for the exhibition appears to me to have been this year most happily chosen-under those umbrageous glades in which we were clustered to-day, within easy reach of railway communication, close to an important town, whose very name shows its |