have become? Little more than a port for the shipping of live stock
to Liverpool and Glasgow. Before the famine, the food of the small
farmers was generally potatoes and milk three times a day, with a bit
of meat occasionally. But salt herrings were the main reliance for
giving a flavour to the potato, often 'wet' and bad. After the failure
of the potatoes, their place was supplied by oatmeal in the form
of 'stirabout.' Indian meal was subsequently found cheaper and more
wholesome. But of late years the diet of the farmers in these parts
has undergone a complete revolution. There is such brisk demand for
butter, eggs, potatoes, and other things that used to be consumed
by the family, that they have got into the habit of taking tea, with
cakes and other home-made bread twice, or even three times, a day.
The demand for tea is, therefore, enormous. There is one grocer's
establishment in Belfast which has been able to produce a mixture that
suits the taste of the people, and the quantity of tea sold by it is
a ton a day. This is the business of but one out of many houses in
Belfast. Then there is the brisk trade in such towns as Newtownards,
Lisburn, Ballymena, &c. In pastoral districts the towns languish, the
people pine in poverty, and the workhouses are in request.

In a financial point of view, therefore, it is manifestly the interest
of the state to encourage 'the spirit of tillage.' It is thus that
most will be got out of the ground, that most revenue will be raised,
and that the other elements of national power will be most fully
developed. How can this encouragement be most effectually given?
Security for the farmer is essential--of what nature should the
security be? The phrase 'unexhausted improvements' is often used.
But should the legislature contemplate, or make provision for the
exhaustion of improvements? Is the improving tenant to be told that
his remedy is to retrograde--to undo what he has done--to take out