SMALL HOLDINGS. 81 



They work for the bettering of horse-breeding 

 and donkey-breeding in the same way. They 

 even provide the farmer's wife with good sittings 

 of duck and fowl eggs to make her poultry run 

 profitable. They advise the planting of creepers 

 and shrubs, and provide seeds, and seek to 

 teach the cottagers to keep their windows open 

 for ventilation. According to the theories of a 

 certain school of political economists, all this 

 must be very unsound. According to the facts, 

 it works out for better stock, better poultry, 

 better human beings. But it is, it seems to 

 me, tainted with unsound finance ; of that 

 more later. 



In dealing with pests and diseases and weeds, 

 the Irish administration has not been able to 

 take as firm a grip of affairs as is needed, think- 

 ing it wise to proceed cautiously at first with 

 the restrictive and punitive side of the work of 

 rural reconstruction. I calculate that one-third 

 of the land's strength is now wasted on grow- 

 ing weeds. Most of the fruit farms are full of 

 pests. Stock continue to be bred from hopeless 

 sires. In Australia there is no hesitation in 

 dealing drastically with such things. The codlin 



