Few of them manage one estate only. Most of them have charge of several of varying importance. For it is a curious thing that landowners who, amongst us, would certainly never afford themselves the luxury of a farm bailiff; people who have not more than 320_l._ to 400_l._ a year, have in this country nearly always recourse to an agent; but this is of course explained by the local customs to which we have previously alluded. Most of the estates are entailed. The proprietors are therefore, strictly speaking, only life tenants. The land is transmitted from male to male, in order of primogeniture, and none of the titles can be alienated. This is called the birthright of the elder, which has existed nearly everywhere in Europe, and which, from an economic point of view, is far from having always produced bad results, since agriculture has never flourished so well anywhere as in England, where the inheritance by order of birth has been more strictly applied than anywhere else. It is very curious that one cause of the misery in Ireland is the result of a custom which has been introduced, and which, if it does not restrict the system of entail in principle, at least renders it singularly onerous. Nearly all the deeds by which the property is entailed give a right to the owner to burden the patrimonial inheritance with annuities payable to the younger members of the family. For instance, a landowner having an entailed property which brings in 4,000_l._ has the right, should he have five children, to burden this property, with four annuities of 200_l._ each for the support of the younger ones. When the father dies, the eldest, therefore, only inherits 3,200_l._ per annum, whilst he still retains all the expenses and risks of managing the estate. If his son exercises the same right, he will only have 2,400_l._; and thus, from generation to generation, the property becomes more and more “encumbered,” as they call it here. If one of the family is an economical man, or marries an heiress, he wipes off the mortgages, and the estate regains its nominal value; but if nothing of this kind happens--and unfortunately, in Ireland, it very rarely does happen--the land, which cannot be sold because it is entailed, at last becomes so overburdened that when a bad year comes, or the rents are not paid, the landlord does not even receive enough to pay the annuities or charges, and he is forced to borrow at enormous interest to enable him to meet his own requirements.