LOANS — PEASANTRY. 11 



horses, we proceeded on to Holljmount. The fields 

 along the road were usually very well fenced with stone 

 walls, " dashed" with lime, and with a stone and lime 

 coping, substantial, and many of them new. Building 

 walls of this kind is included in the objects for which 

 Government loans, under the Land Improvement Act, 

 are made to the owners of land. 



The appearance of the peasantry always attracts the 

 stranger's notice. Whatever they were doing, as soon as 

 the car came in sight all eyes were turned to it. The 

 boy on the cart, pitching up sheaves to the stack, sat 

 himself down till we passed ; the man on the stack 

 thrust his hands into his pockets, to keep them from 

 catching cold while he was looking at us. The hay- 

 makers were all on the watch. — Three carts were in a 

 field being loaded with corn. Two were loaded ; 

 on the third, a man was building the sheaves, while 

 a young boy was carrying them to the cart, and then 

 throwing them up with his hand, (for they seem to 

 have no forks,) while two men were close by leaning 

 against the loaded carts, but offering no assistance to 

 the boy, who had the hardest work of the party. Some 

 of the cottages on the road-side looked very neat ; but 

 in these you could notice the pig coming out and in at 

 the door, evidently on the most friendly terms with the 

 inmates. " Arrah," as Paddy says, " an' who has a 

 better right % Sure, isn't it he that pays the rint ¥' 



On the grazing farms, the method of providing the 

 winter food seems to be this. Certain fields are shut 

 up for hay. When it is made, it is built in very large 

 round ricks, a pole being first fixed in the ground, 



