WEXFORD CLIMATE

Samuel Lewis

1837

In the eastern and southern districts, which lie open to the sea, the temperature is milder than that of the adjoining counties of Carlow and Kilkenny. Snow seldom continues on the ground, and the lands may be tilled, and the surface is verdant, while those ten miles inland are frost-bound, and their elevated parts covered with snow. The southern district is subject to storms in spring and autumn, and to heavy rains in winter; but the harvest is as early, if not earlier, than in the opposite Welsh counties of Pembroke and Carmarthen, which lie more southerly. It is even earlier here than in the north of Devonshire; and the climate is altogether eminently favourable to the perfection of grain crops.

The soil is mostly of a cold clayey nature, being deficient in the substrata of limestone and limestone gravel, universally found in the midland counties. On the whole, the maritime districts are superior to those in the interior, as to fertility. The whole of the eastern and southern borders has a deep alluvial soil, abounding with various kinds of marl and calcareous sand, with some limestone. The western and inland baronies contain little marl, but in compensation for this defect they have abundance of bog, which affords an adequate supply of turf for burning the lime imported from the neighbouring counties, while the southern baronies are extremely deficient in this useful article.

The prevailing clayey and gravelly loam, though apparently stubborn and untractable, when judiciously under-drained and limed, is productive of abundant crops. In the Hook, a peninsula entirely open to the ocean, and little elevated above its level, the subsoil is of a compact limestone, overspread with a thin layer of vegetable mould: it produces grasses of wonderful luxuriance, and both wheat and barley of superior excellence.

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