332 A LIFE'S WORK IN IRELAND. 



working the best of his ground, managed to pay his rent, 

 and keep his head above water. Still, somehow, he 

 could not conceal from himself that his crops every 

 year got worse, and his land was more and more reduced. 

 When he was obliged to sell his cow in the autumn or 

 winter, in consequence of not having food for her, he 

 found it more and more difficult to buy another in her 

 •place, till at last he was obliged to content himself with 

 only one cow, and of course found himself the next season 

 with still less manure for his garden ; and though by 

 the help of ditch-scrapings and earth, he planted the 

 same number of acres of potatoes, yet no one but him- 

 self was surprised that part of them were hardly worth 

 digging. Tim was not a man to give way to trifles, he 

 still struggled manfully, sowed every bit of land he 

 could with wheat, let several acres of bawn- field to 

 cottagers and labourers for gardens, though part of it 

 had only been in grazing one or two years; and, in 

 short, did his very best to recover himself. 



That winter, however, he had the misfortune to lose 

 a fine fat pig, to which he had trusted to pay a good 

 part of his summer's rent. His landlord, however, as 

 he had before been tolerably regular, gave him time for 

 his rent, and Tim hoped by his wheat and the rent of 

 bis gardens to make it all up after harvest ; but alas ! 

 the bad times had come — wheat, which for several years 

 before had been 30s. a barrel, and sometimes more, now 

 fell to 18s. or 20s. per barrel; and oats fell as much. 

 Butter and pigs, to be sure, did not fall so much, but 

 Tim had been unfortunate with his pigs, and of course 

 his one cow could not give him much butter, especially 

 now that he had so much tillage, and of course so little 

 and weak grazing for her. The summer, too, in Ireland 



