A LIFE'S WORK IN IRELAND. 



rent would be rigorously insisted on about three 

 months .after it fell due, on regular half-yearly days, 

 fixed conveniently to suit local fairs. Two or three 

 of the worst tenants, believed to be incorrigible, 

 were ejected in terrorem, and their farms divided 

 among the better sort. The growth of small quan- 

 tities of clover and turnips was made compulsory, 

 and a Scotchman set to work to teach how to do it. 

 Prizes of improved ploughs were offered for the best 

 crops, and a small model farm was started. 



It was uphill work for some time, and only 

 carried out by personal influence and superintend- 

 ence ; but at the end of five years the stock on the 

 estate had doubled, and the rent was regularly paid 

 on a single day in each half-year without trouble, 

 whilst not more than six or eight tenants, including 

 the first victims, had been turned out. It need 

 hardly be added that the rest were better off than 

 they had ever been before. 



All this had been done by two or three visits in 

 the year from England, but at this time circum- 

 stances led me to reside on the estate. Things went 

 on thus improving for two or three more years, then 

 the potato failure and famine came, with the com- 

 plete upset of the social state previously existing. 

 By that time we had got into such a condition that 

 the first failure of 1845 seemed hardly to affect 

 the tenants. Even in the great failure of 1846 

 there was nothing like distress among them. The 



