on their guard. Every man sits down securely under his vine and his
figtree, and enjoys with comfort the fruit of his honest labours.' He
ascribes in the main this prosperity to what he calls '_the spirit of
tillage_.' Until that spirit arose in Ulster, the Irish had to send to
America for their daily bread, 'which,' he says, 'to the astonishment
of all Europe, has been often our weakness.' Viewing the whole social
condition of the county, he exclaims, 'Such are the happy effects of
a well-peopled country, _extensive tillage, the linen manufacture, and
the Protestant religion_.'

In the first year of the present century, the Dublin Society (not yet
'Royal') employed 'land commissioners' to enquire into the condition
of agriculture in the several counties of Ireland. The Rev. John
Dubourdieu, rector of Annahilt, in this county, was their commissioner
for Down and Antrim. He states that the rent was then on an average
20 s. the _Irish_ acre (three equal to five English), allowing for the
mountains and bogs, which he computed at 44,658 acres. The rental of
the county he sets down at 300,000 l. The net annual value of property
assessed under the Tenement Valuation Act is now 743,869 l. This is
considerably under the letting value, it is supposed, 25 per cent. If
this be so, the county yields to the proprietors a revenue of about
1,000,000 l. a year. If we add the value of the tenant-right, and of
the fixtures of all sorts--houses, mills, roads, bridges--as well as
the movable property and stock, we may get some idea of the enormous
aggregate of wealth which the labour of man has created on this strip
of wild wooded hills, swampy plains, and bogs.

Now, what has effected this marvellous change? The tenants, with one
voice, exclaim, 'our labour, our capital, our skill, our care, and
self-denial. It was we that cleared away the woods which it was