CH. III.] YEARLY OCCUPATION, OR CON-ACRE. 51 



for wages be substituted for the con-acre system, it would 

 be most desirable. 



In other respects the system is not productive in this 

 barony of litigation between the farmer and the labourer 

 who hires under him. On the contrary, labourers express 

 themselves grateful for small portions of con-acre, and 

 many of them who were questioned on the subject de- 

 signated different landholders as good or bad, according 

 as they let much or little of their ground for potatoes, 

 without particular reference to whether the rents demanded 

 were high or low. 



In the barony of Dromahair, it was stated that the 

 farmers who let con-acre are usually persons greatly in 

 need of money to pay their rents, or else they would not 

 break up good pasture ; for the mischief is equally great 

 for the landlord, the farmer and labourer. The farmers 

 never allow the labourer to introduce into the agreement 

 the condition of paying the rent in work ; because if they 

 are not paid, they oblige him to work at half-price, and 

 that too in harvest-time, when the poor can obtain em- 

 ployment. 



Frequently the labourer is unable to pay, and he then 

 abandons the crops and is reduced to beggary. Such is 

 the eagerness to obtain from farmers plots of land, that 

 although they do not permit the potatoes to be dug up 

 before the rent is paid (fearing that they might be car- 

 ried off in the night, or that the wet would spoil them), 

 the labourers, nevertheless, do not like to have any dis- 

 agreement with the farmers, lest they should refuse them 

 the land the following year. 



In the barony of Mohill, it is a common thing to make 

 the labourer take an oath that he will pay the rent before 



K 2 



