136 A LIFE'S WORK IN IRELAND. " 



to learn the very best system and ways of treating 

 land. 



In the past winter most pf the loans for giving 

 employment to the poor were taken by landowners. 

 In a Barony in the remotest part of County Cork, 

 where there was really some distress, two landowners 

 undertook to employ every poor man in it. Who are 

 able to do the draining and reclamation if the land- 

 owners give such works up ? Some landowners have 

 built good labourers' houses for their people, with 

 gardens, etc., attached. The wages they pay, 9s. to 12s. 

 per week, and sometimes more, are without exception 

 far above those paid by farmers. My rule has always 

 been to pay a little over the usual (not the farmers') 

 rate of the district. When a family is industrious, often 

 two or more members of it are employed as labourers. 

 I had a family for the last few years new-comers 

 to the parish of whom I employed the father and 

 two sons at 9s. per week each, and the mother and 

 daughter at 6s. each 39s. in all, besides house, etc., 

 free. At the end of three years they were no better 

 off than when they came, and I had the satisfaction 

 of finding that my good wages had gone to get their 

 house blessed, to drive out the fairies, who were sus- 

 pected of haunting it ! 



The farmers in my part now employ scarcely any 

 labourers. They only till so much of their land as 

 they can manage with their own help, as they call it. 

 They will not pay the wages. A few employ a 



