CH. V.] CONSOLIDATION OF FARMS. ?5 



Several of the principal landlords have made provisions 

 against subletting, and a general covenant in the lease is, 

 that in case of subletting, the original tenant shall either 

 forfeit his farm or pay 107. an acre ; and at the present 

 time it is nominally impossible for a poor man to procure 

 the place for a house. Such is the difficulty, that the mode 

 has been struck out, of making additions to the original 

 house to provide some room for the young people as they 

 get married. 



In the barony of Dromahair the witnesses stated, that 

 the size of holdings has been on the decrease in the greater 

 part of the barony for several years, and that only one 

 landlord has made any efforts to check the universal ten- 

 dency to subdivision which prevails, although the Roman 

 Catholic priests are beginning to use their influence to 

 prevent it, and advise the small tenants to teach their 

 children trades, rather than to quarter them upon their 

 farms of five acres. The landowner above mentioned had 

 in view the correction of abuses which had arisen while 

 the land was leased to middle-men, and he selected the 

 period of the expiration of the leases of several of this 

 class to carry the consolidation into effect. This was 

 in the year 1823, and a lease of two thousand acres, 

 in the hands of one of these middle-men, having expired, 

 about six hundred persons were put out at once, and 

 not one fifth of the population that existed on the land 

 previous to the new arrangements are now inhabitants 

 of it. 



Under the old leases the great subdivision was produc- 

 tive of much loss. The innumerable and irregular fences 

 contributed to diminish the produce of the land ; but since 

 the alteration, there is a perceptible change for the better. 



