184 A LIFE'S WORK IN IRELAND. 



at ten years' purchase, at least £520, should have been 

 paid to this worthless man for notliing. The land 

 was all dry by nature : there were no other improve- 

 ments on it. The Scotchman would have had to 

 pay the £520 Tenant-right, though without any con- 

 sideration for doing so. And he would of course have 

 had to put up buildings for himself costing £200 — 

 £720 capital spent for a farm of fifty -two acres. 

 Where was the capital then to come from for stock- 

 ing, manuring, and farming it ? £10 an acre, £500 

 was wanted for this purpose. Nowhere are men to 

 be found with £1200 capital to lay out in occupying 

 a farm of fifty-two acres. The interest on the money 

 alone at 10 per cent would be £120 a year, 47s. 6d. 

 per acre, leavmg the rent of 24s. per acre, a trifle by 

 comparison. In England or Scotland a farmer with 

 £1200 would hire 150 acres of land. "With that 

 quantity he could do something, and earn his 10 

 per cent well. No one with that capital would hire 

 fifty-two acres, nor would any one who knew his 

 business do so in Ireland. Having added largely to 

 nearly all my tenants' farms, without the increase of 

 land having cost them one shilling of capital in any 

 way, I am able to give any number of similar cases. 



Here is another illustration. Soon after I came 

 home from London last July I met in the street a 

 prosperous old feUow who has a large farm from a 

 neighbour, and with whom I had very long been 

 friendly. After mutual inquiry after each other's 



