Weekly National Intelligencer

RELIEF TO IRELAND

We have received a Circular from the General Relief Committee of Ireland, dated Dublin, 19th of 6th month, from which it appears that in the year and a half of their administration they had distributed breadstuffs, &c. to the amount of £142,665, throughout the several countries of Ireland, in more than 8,900 separate grants. Within the same period, more than 37,000 letters were received or despatched at the office of the committee, who appear to have conducted the whole affair in a most faithful and Christian manner. For some months past they have almost discontinued the gratuitous issues of food, except to the sick and their children, preferring to appropriate the remaining funds to the encouragement of the fisheries on the western and southern coasts of Ireland, the extension and improvement of land cultivation, the distribution of turnip and other green-crop seeds to small farmers, &c. For the promotion of these and kindred objects there remained in the hands of the Committee at the date above mentioned £31,276. As a specimen of their manner of proceeding, we copy the following from the aforesaid circular.--Tribune.

We have lately entered upon the cultivation of about five hundred and fifty Irish (equal to nine hundred English) acres of land in the county of Mayo--an engagement requiring the outlay of a considerable sum of money; which being chiefly expended in spade labor in one of the most impoverished counties in Ireland, cannot fail, whatever may be its ultimate issue, to afford a large amount of present relief. We entertain a hope, however, not only that the funds employed will be returned, but that the exhibition of an improved mode of culture, and the growth of useful crops, hitherto but little known in that part of the country, will have a tendency to withdraw the peasantry from their exclusive dependence on the potato, and in other respects be productive of permanent benefit. The lands are of good quality, and in fair condition; and are placed at our disposal for one season by the proprietors, free of rent and poor rate: we provide the labor, manure, and seed, and receive the produce, giving up the land when the crops shall be disposed of. The allotment of crops is agreed to be as follows:

A considerable portion of the land is now sown, and the prospects so far are favorable. This operation is superintended by an intelligent local committee, consisting of a few highly respectable persons residing at Ballina and its vicinity, assisted by the county surveyor, and one of the practical instructors at present so usefully employed by the Royal Agricultural Society in diffusing sound information respecting the management of land amongst the small farmers in various parts of Ireland.

A similar operation on a smaller scale has been undertaken on our behalf in the county of Galway by Lord Wallscourt; in this instance, we have simply given the seed and advanced the sum of £200, to be repaid in twelve months, on condition of the money being expended in the culture by spade labor of fifty acres in crops approved by us. The whole of this land is now under crop, and the reports made to us of the execution and prospects of the work are exceedingly satisfactory.

The situation of small landholders, who have struggled under the great difficulties of the last two years to maintain their independent position, has repeatedly claimed our sympathy and assistance. We were enabled last year, by a liberal donation from the Government by the hands of Commissary-General Sir Randolph Routh, of about 40,000 pounds weight of turnip seeds, to make a very seasonable distribution in small portions in various parts of Ireland. The results were truly valuable and encouraging. By the returns made from our correspondents entrusted with the local distribution, it appeared that nine thousand six hundred and fifty-two acres were sown, a large proportion of which, through the extreme poverty of the occupiers, would probably have otherwise lain waste; and the produce having been generally abundant, it is estimated that upwards of one hundred and ninety thousand tons of turnips were thus raised by a class consisting generally of small farmers and cottiers, whose resources were almost exhausted.