286 CENTRAL IRELAND 



re-let to the original landlord at 653. an acre. 

 The former tenant now lives in the town on the 

 difference between the instalments he pays to the 

 Estates Commissioners and the rent he receives from 

 his former landlord ! Of course these grazings are let 

 for only eleven months, lest the occupier should begin 

 to acquire a tenant-right, and the original justification 

 for tenant-right is less here than in any part of Ireland. 

 The grass is so much a sheer gift of the soil that the 

 buildings and improvements are comparatively of much 

 less account than usual. The art of obtaining judicial 

 reductions of rent was well understood, even to the 

 coining of a word " preparating " the land, for the 

 process of blocking up the outlets of the drains and 

 generally getting up a miserable look on the farm 

 some six months before the visitation of the Com- 

 missioners was due. One of the most learned farmers 

 in Ireland, holding, moreover, an official position for 

 the promotion of agriculture, told us that he found 

 it worth his while to run his farm down prior to 

 the visit of the Commissioners. Such is the inevit- 

 able result of a Land Court ; a premium is placed on 

 bad farming, and the tenant is tempted to aim at a 

 reduction of rent rather than the more distant profit 

 accruing to enterprise and good management. 



But in Ireland to-day all this is ancient history ; 

 the farmers are acquiring their land and are free to 

 work out their own salvation without obstacles or 

 temptations. The graziers, we were told, had been 

 hard hit during that year of drought, a drought from 

 which the Irish pastures suffered during the critical 

 month of June, when a bullock should do the best of 

 his fattening. In the spring good store cattle com- 

 manded an unprecedented price ; they had grown but 

 little din-ing the summer, not enough to meet the fall 



