Competition for Small Farms. 105 



bandry of the country. To obtain the possession 

 of a cabin is the great object of every individual; 

 and as the competitors are numerous, the rents 

 are consequently very high, being regulated, 

 not by the worth of the tenement, but the 

 wants of the parties. 



Capital is as necessary as skill, to ensure the 

 greatest possible produce from the soil ; but 

 where the land is in the possession of individuals 

 only one degree above mendicity, and many 

 degrees below sufficiency in the requisite infor- 

 mation for conducting agricultural concerns, it 

 cannot be matter of surprise, that not one half 

 the quantity of food is procured, which might 

 be, from the like quantity of labor, applied to 

 such a spil under a better system of manage-* 

 ment. 



The whole expense of erecting buildings is 

 universally borne by the tenant. The appen- 

 dage of a barn is a convenience very seldom 

 enjoyed by the Irish farmer; the hard naked 

 highway furnishes the floor on which his grain 

 is threshed. A great part of the straw from 

 this process is applied to thatching ; the rest is 

 totally lost for want of protection from the 

 weather. The manure thus made is necessarily 

 of inferior quality trifling, and insufficient, 



