74 ON THE STATE OF IRELAND. [BOOK I. 



ceed the united produce of the small holdings from which 

 it is made ; the more so, as these small tenants, who have 

 no skill in systematic cropping, and are ignorant of arti- 

 ficial manure, reduce the land to such a state of exhaustion, 

 that when they lay it down to grass, it produces no- 

 thing but daisies and thistles ; they are then obliged to 

 allow it to remain so, until it gets a fresh coating of vege- 

 table mould. Upon a farm of four acres, one half was 

 always in a state of exhaustion, and the tenant could 

 only grow what was indispensable for his food, namely 

 potatoes ; he found himself compelled to ceconomize even 

 the seed, which was taken only from the refuse. This 

 small tenant, being sometimes obliged to engage the use 

 of a neighbour's plough and horses for a day, was made 

 to repay such aid, by giving about twenty days' labour 

 for the ploughing of an acre, which, at sixpence a day, 

 amounts to ten shillings. 



This system of consolidation is impeded by a general, 

 though not acknowledged, fear of the disturbances caused 

 by the distress to which the people are reduced. The 

 witnesses affirm that, so strong is the attachment of the 

 small tenants to their farms, that all the compensation given 

 them, and the assurance of work at sixpence a day, cannot 

 reconcile them to the loss. This good treatment allays 

 their animosity against those who succeed them in their 

 farms ; but they are always fearful of being deceived, al- 

 though the landlords have gone so far as to give a pension 

 of two pounds a year to those widows who are deprived of 

 their lands. " It is not for our good," said one of the 

 witnesses a small tenant " that the landlords want us to 

 go elsewhere ; if they can make more money of the farms 

 they want to turn us out of, so can we." 



