IRELAND.
The annual cattle-show of the Royal Agricultural Improvement Society look place at Dublin on Wednesday. It was an average exhibition. En the evening, the Duke of Leinster presided over the banquet, and the Lord-Lieutenant was present and took part in the proceedings. In ac- knowledging a toast to his health, Lord Carlisle noticed the improvements which of late years have been effected. For instance : the quantity of land in cultivation had increased from 13,464,800 sores in 1841 to 14,802,581 acres in 1851; while the value of live stock during the same period rose from 19,339,0001. to 27,326,0004, and reached to 33,508,0004 in 1854. Then the growth of wheat has diminished, and green crops, oats, barley, and flax have increased. There were in 1853, 174,379 aorta under flax cultivation, and in 1851 the soutch-mills amounted to 1100. While the population has decreased, the productions of Ireland have in- creased, and the condition of the remaining population has been benefited in two ways.
"Thus, gentlemen, if such has been the continued progress, despite the blight of famine and the drain of emigration, and the dreadful calamity of war, whether we refer to the productiveness of the soil, the enterprise of the proprietors, or the general nonillion of the people, may not our hopes for the future—sobered, indeed, by a reliance upon the inscrutable will of an all-ruling Providence—may not our hopes for the future be moat encourag- ing and sanguine ? And if such be the general improvement in Irish agri- culture and the condition of the Irish population, let me add my earnest hope that this society, the great Irish Agricultural Society itself, may long continue to witness and develop its inestimable advantages under the genial auspices of your Grace ; and that, gathering still increasing support from all classes and from all orders—from those who represent the most ancient line- age and the largest wealth of the country, and from those whose hard-work- ing industry and labour sustain the wide basis of our social fabric—bringing to bear all the new lights of science, applying all such new methods and preferring all such old ones as experience may approve, this society may progress each future year as it has done each past year of its valuable exist- ence, and find its best reward in the acknowledgments of new advantages conferred upon a peaceful, a prosperous, and a grateful people."
The report having been revived that Mr. Lucas intended to resign his seat for Meath, in consequence of ill health, and disgust at the hopelees- ness of the Irish cause, that gentleman has written to the Times denying the truth of the report. He says he sees no reason to "despond of Irish affairs" ; be is disgusted with the "peculiar turpitude of Ministerial poli- tics"; and as to his health, though troublesome for th moment his indis- position has nothing serious in it ; and he has not the slightest intention of applying for the Chiltern Hundreds.
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