TENANTRY. 23 



for each of them. To leflen the live ftock neceffary, they 

 will, whenever the neighbourhood enables them, take in the 

 cattle at fo much per month, or feafon, of any perfon that is 

 deficient in pafturage at home, or of any labourers that have no 

 land. Next, they will let out fome old lay for grafs potatoes 

 to fuch labourers ; and if they are in a county where corn 

 acres are known, they will do the fame with fome corn land. 

 If there is any meadow on their farm, they will fell a part of 

 it as the hay grows. By all thefe means the neceflity of a 

 full ftock is very much leflened, and by means of living them- 

 felres in the very pooreft manner, and converting every pig, 

 fowl, and even egg into cafh, they will make up their rent, 

 and get by very flow degrees into fomewhat better circumftan- 

 ces. Where it is the cuftom to take in partnership, the diffi- 

 culties are cadet got over, for one man brings a few fheep, 

 another a cow, a third a horfe, a fourth a car and fome feed 

 potatoes, a fifth a few barrels of corn, and fo on, until the 

 farm among them is tolerably ftoeked, and hands upon it in 

 plenty for the labour. 



But it is from the whole evident, that they are uncommon 

 matters of the art of overcoming difficulties by patience and 

 contrivance. Travellers, who take a fuperficial view of 

 them are apt to think their poverty and wretchednefs, viewed 

 in the light of farmers, greater than they are. Perhaps there 

 is an impropriety in confidering a man merely as the occupier 

 of fuch a quantity of land, and that inftead of the land, his ca- 

 pital fliould be the objed of contemplation. Give the farmer 

 of twenty acres in England no more capital than his brother 

 in Ireland, and I will venture to fay he will be much poorer, for 

 he would be utterly unable to go on at all. 



I fhall conclude what I have to fay upon this fubjeft, with 

 ftating, in few words, what I think would prove a very advan- 

 tageous condurt in landlords towards the poor tenantry of 

 the kiggclom, and I fhall do this with the greater readinefs, 

 as I fpeak not only as a pafMng traveller, but from a year's re- 

 fidence among feveral hundred tenants, whofe circumftances 

 and fituation I had particular opportunities of obferving. 



Let me remark, that the power and influence of a refident 

 landlord is fo great in Ireland, that whatever fyftem he adopts 

 be it well or ill imagined, he is much more able to introduce 

 and accomplifli it than Engiifhinen can well have an idea of; 

 confequently, one may fuppofe him to determine more autho~ 

 ritatively than a perfon in a fimilar fituation in this kingdom 

 could do. The firft objeft, is a ferried determination never to 

 be departed from, to let his farms only to the immediate occu- 

 pier of the land, and to avoid deceit not to allow a cottar, 

 herdlman, or fteward, to have more than three or four acres 

 on any of his farms. By no means to rejeft the little oc- 

 cupier of a few acres from being a tenant to himfelf, rather 

 than annex his land to a larger fpot. Having by this previous 

 ftep, eafed thefe inferior tenantry of the burden of the interme- 

 diate 



