THE GRASS PLAIN 287 



in the market resulting from the general shortage of 

 keep, so that many men after paying 3 an acre for 

 the land, found their cattle at the end worth less than 

 their cost price. 



From Navan to Dublin the road runs through this 

 same smoothly undulating grass country, occupied 

 mainly by cattle and a few sheep, but otherwise 

 sparsely populated to a degree. The farmhouses seem 

 few ; one only sees here and there a labourer's cottage 

 by the roadside, the villages sparse and thinly 

 populated ; only the demesnes broke the monotony of 

 the grass. The preoccupation with grazing was to be 

 seen by the goats belonging to every cottage ; only in 

 this way can the Irish labourer get milk, of which none 

 is to be bought. One could not but sympathize with 

 the men who want to break up these grazings, even 

 though their methods are such as no State can tolerate, 

 and the economic result perhaps doubtful. On the one 

 hand are the landless men of Ireland, not merely the 

 surplus population of the " congested districts," but the 

 labourers, who are none the better off now the farmers 

 have obtained the land ; on the other hand lies this 

 fertile country, hardly carrying as it seemed an 

 inhabitant per hundred acres. But when land can 

 command 3 an acre to graze, it is difficult to see how 

 a farmer could earn such a rental by putting it under 

 the plough ; yet tillage is the only method by which 

 a monetary return can be obtained from a small 

 holding sufficient for the support of a family. But it is 

 debateable whether the Irish grazings really earn the 

 very high rents that are paid for them ; of course the 

 grazier makes his profit, but more by turning into 

 marketable stock the half-starved yearlings bought 

 from the little men in the poor country west of the 

 Shannon than by grazing as it is known in England. 



