24 My Little Farm 



many months before the product comes in view. 

 Bound by these obligations, I must of necessity 

 go for a maximum of production at a minimum 

 of labour cost, and since this cannot come from 

 multiplying the power of the man, -per se, it must 

 come from multiplying the productiveness of the 

 process. 



Here we reach what seems to me to be one of 

 the most important points in any practical study 

 of Irish farming and of the peculiar conditions in 

 which our peasant production is carried on, with 

 a standard of living kept down to accommodate 

 a half barbaric standard of production, and the 

 soil consequently held at less than half its proper 

 use to the national existence. What I am forced 

 by the circumstances to do is, for example, to 

 produce 50 tons of mangolds from the same plot 

 from which my neighbour would produce 15 or 20 

 tons, and with no more labour than he applies ; 

 or, to put it another way, while he applies his 

 labour to an acre for a given result, I get an equal 

 result from less than half the acre and less than 

 half the amount of his labour. What is more, I 

 must do it, because I have to get back the wages 

 expended, and cannot cover my failure by sinking 

 to his lower standard of life. In this levelling up, 

 there is a farther asset to be noted : while I produce 

 more from the half acre than my neighbour 

 produces from the acre, I have the other half acre 

 free to produce something else. Now I will leave 

 the patriotic reader to think it out for himself 

 what the Irish nation would gain by having about 

 three-fourths of the peasantry in the employment 



