APPENDIX. 331 



at night, when he had any straw or furze for them, and 

 they got what praties he could spare ; though he always 

 sorely grudged these last, as he knew praties would 

 fetch a fine price in April. But often, with his best 

 management, he was obliged to sell one of the cows in 

 the middle of winter, when cows bore a bad price — not 

 more than £4 or £5 — instead of keeping her till the 

 spring, when she would have calved, or been near calv- 

 ing, and would have brought £8 at the least ; and even 

 when he did succeed in keeping them both through the 

 winter, they were always in the spring very weak and 

 poor, looking more like ghosts of dead cows than real 

 living ones. Their calves, besides, were weak and 

 sickly ; and the cows being so reduced, did not after 

 calving give nearly so much milk as Tim had expected. 

 But the worst of the business is yet to come ; for Tim 

 was able to keep his stock so little in the house, and 

 had so little to give them to eat, that though he 

 gathered up all the dung dropped in fields, still he had 

 but a small quantity of manure for his potatoes, and 

 was always obliged to make shift with scrapings from 

 his ditches, and mixing earth and sand. For the first 

 few years of his being in the farm, Tim drew a good 

 deal of sand ; and, by buying oar-weed, he managed to 

 get a tolerable potato crop. To be sure, his wheat, after 

 the potatoes, was very moderate, still he consoled him- 

 self with thinking that there were few of the neighbours 

 who were much better off* ; and he often reasoned with 

 himself, that his father and his grandfather had farmed 

 in the same way as he did ; and as it happened, 

 that the first few years he had the farm, times were 

 good, and wheat and oats, and pigs and butter, fetched 

 a good price, Tim, by tilling his old bawn- fields, and 



