TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' WORK. 7 



But to return from tliis digression. In the 

 summer of 1847 several of the worst-off tenants 

 on the estate proposed to give up their farms and 

 emigrate, although a reduction of rent had been 

 made, to continue whilst the bad times lasted. 

 They were given some help to enable them to 

 emigrate, and many of them went off. 



But a general discouragement and unsettlement 

 throughout the country now set in. No one, either 

 landlord or tenant, felt any confidence in the future, 

 or in fact could see what was the best course to 

 follow. Throughout the country numbers of tenants 

 were giving up their farms and going away. Often 

 all the tenants of a plough-land would run off by 

 night to a distance with stock and crops, leaving 

 the landlord to recover the possession of the land as 

 he could by ejectment, perhaps twelve months after- 

 wards, and with a heavy arrear of rates upon it. It 

 was a common saying among the tenants that " the 

 landlords and labourers would soon have the land all 

 to themselves." It was a terribly anxious time. No 

 one could tell from half-year to half-year what course 

 things would take, and that he might not have every 

 acre he owned thrown on his hands. To lay out 

 capital at such a time on improvements and doubtful 

 farming was felt to be nothing less than spending 

 what might be wanted before long for actual sub- 

 sistence. Few who went through that time of 

 wretchedness will ever forget it. 



