92 SPECIALIST FARMING POTATOES 



available, so that the grower chiefly relied on making 



farmyard manure in sufficient quantities for all his 



potatoes. When the great drop in prices came at the 



close of the 'seventies, and with it a succession of bad 



seasons when the potatoes blighted and could not be 



harvested, the small men were affected more than the 



large farmers, because they rarely possessed any 



reserve of capital. The Assistant-Commissioner who 



wrote the report on this district for the Royal 



Commission on Agricultural Depression which was 



presided over by Lord Cathcart, draws a very black 



picture of the state of affairs in 1882. The men then 



occupying the land were largely ruined, much of the 



land was sold, and from that time onwards our host, 



who in one way or another had managed to adapt 



himself to the changed conditions, began to take up 



land and had ever since been adding farm to farm. 



He had thrown the little fields together, red rained the 



land, brought in fertility liberally and wisely, and 



above all organized the selling of his potatoes on a 



wholesale basis, with the remarkable results we were 



then seeing. Of course, not he alone had partaken 



in the general prosperity that has come to the whole 



potato-growing area ; rents were high, about 5 os. 



an acre in general, up to as much as $ for specially 



good pieces of land. Even at that price farms were 



in demand, so that a stranger had but little chance of 



getting in. But favourable as potato-growing may 



seem to the small holder, and though wages are good 



enough to give a labourer a chance of saving enough 



money to start on his own account, there were but few 



little farmers left in the district, and our host was very 



strong in his opinion that whatever might be done to 



re-establish a system of small holders, they would 



again be crushed out when the next wave of falling 



