4 ABUNDANCE OF EMPLOY. 



the soil are kept constantly dry. All this seems to 

 favour the supposition that they are healthy ; but 

 if exempted from ailments arising from mal-aria, 

 inflammatory complaints do not seem excluded 

 from such situations. When the typhus fever pre- 

 vailed in the country, we were by no means ex- 

 empted from its effects ; the severe coughs attend- 

 ing the spring of 1826 afflicted grievously most in- 

 dividuals in every house ; and the measles, which 

 prevailed so greatly at the same season, visited 

 every cottage, though built upon the very limestone 

 rock. 



This village and its neighbouring parishes, by 

 reason of the peculiar culture carried on in them, 

 and the natural production of the district, afford 

 the most ample employment for their labouring 

 inhabitants ; nor perhaps could any portion of the 

 kingdom, neither possessing mineral riches, manu- 

 factories, or mills, nor situate in the immediate vici- 

 nity of a great town, be found to afford superior 

 demand for the labour, healthy employment, and 

 reasonable toil of its population. Our lime-kilns 

 engage throughout the year several persons ; this 

 is, perhaps, our most laborious employ, though its 

 returns are considered as fair. In our culture, after 

 all the various business of the farms, comes the 

 potato setting ; nor is this finished wholly before 

 hay-making commences. Teazleing succeeds ; the 

 corn harvest comes on, followed shortly by the re- 

 quirements of the potato again, and the digging out 

 and securing this requires the labour of multitudes 



