IRELAND, 1840-1880. 109 



tenant had not thought it worth while to plough the 

 field for corn. Three or four good manurings with 

 intervals of grass have not brought such land up to a 

 fair average state. I had to pay for the neglect and 

 faults of those who went before me, bad tenants 

 having been the doers of the mischief. I do not say 

 this to complain, but to show why the land was so 

 many years before it paid, and what had to be faced. 

 All was terribly run down; some worse than the 

 rest. The true trouble in Ireland is, What to do with 

 bad tenants ? 



No tenant was ever turned out because I wished 

 for his land on account of its goodness, or to round 

 off other land in hand. I just took up what the 

 tenants could not live on, and made the best of it. I 

 heard myself described lately as a man who had a 

 passion for taking up bad land and making good land 

 of it. 



Whilst this has gone on the rest of the tenants 

 have gradually come to thrive thoroughly. Of some, 

 on the deaths of their fathers, or when large addi- 

 tions have been made to their farms, the rents have 

 been raised. This has been done on my own prac- 

 tical judgment, as farming like land myself, but 

 making allowance for the tenants being ignorant 

 and bad farmers still. As a body they are far 

 better off than an equal number on any neighbour- 

 ing estate. Except from his own personal faults, 

 chiefly from drink, that a tenant should fail is un- 



