ON AGRICULTURE TO IRELAND 55 



Kerry, and Cork. The districts comprised 3,608,569 acres, and 

 contained a ] copulation of 549,516. 



It will be noticed from the foregoing figures that the districts 

 were not congested in the sense that the population was too dense. 

 The congestion was due to the fact that the land was poor and 

 una})le to maintain the population. The people, who were illiterate 

 to the extent of 50 per cent, in some districts, occupied in many 

 cases small scattered plots of undrained bog-land, extending from 

 2 to 4 acres, with certain rights of turbary and common pasturage. 

 Their rents averaged about £6 per year. In the inland districts 

 they were dependent almost entirely on agriculture. They were 

 bad farmers. They observed no rotation of crops. They neither 



SCHOOL OF THE FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES OF MARY (FORMERLY THE 

 MANSION OF LORD DILLON), LOUGHGLYNN 



manured nor cleaned their land. Their breeds of stock were 

 worn out. On the sea- board the fishing was more valuable 

 than the produce of the land. In most cases, however, neither 

 the land nor the sea was sufficient to maintain the people in any- 

 thing like decent comfort. It was these districts which supplied 

 our potato lifters and our harvest hands. Their wages made ends 

 meet on many a farm in Ireland. Other farmers were able to keep 

 theii- heads above water by subscriptions from relatives in America. 

 When every available source of income was taken into account, 

 the life of the farmers in the congested districts was anything but 

 enviable. In a good year it has been said that they were little 

 more than free from the dread of hungei, while a partial failure of 

 their crops reduced them tc something like semi-starvation. In 

 the Appendix to the first iJeport of the Congested Districts Board 



