PREFACE xiii 



is already over .5,000. People wonder why I 

 continue, because money is their highest measure 

 of human motive. That is often the case with 

 those who have never had money. I choose to 

 make this use of my life, knowing that the things 

 most worth living for are never measurable in 

 money. It emancipates me from the slavery of 

 writing to order, and I should not exchange my 

 knowledge of Ireland and her people for five 

 thousand pounds. Thus farming is not the first 

 motive in My Little Farm, but there is enough 

 for the farmer to make Ireland another kind of 

 country in a few years. I am more interested in 

 character than in crops, but either may be seen 

 through the other. Humanity is more to me than 

 vegetables, and there are plenty of men to write 

 merely technical treatises on farming if there is 

 anybody to read them. Of course, I need not 

 spend my whole life to exploit the economics of 

 a peasant farm. In a few years, when the educa- 

 tional value of it is established, I can, if I like, sit 

 down on it, dream my dreams, look on at the cows 

 eating the grass, and at the clearance of the Irish 

 out of Ireland, which must increase in proportion 

 as the cow is capitalised. As occupants of the soil, 

 Irishmen are nowhere in competition with cows, 

 because the Irishman cannot be improved in 

 Ireland, and the cow can. 



I write to please nobody but myself, and I 

 consult no conscience but my own. I would 

 help the peasant ; therefore, I would not attempt 

 to please him. I paint him as I see him, not as 



