CORNWALL'S CONNEMARA 35 



until at last the dogs, tired of the useless contest, 

 would go to sleep ; then the foxes would sneak in to 

 see what they could pick up. 



There is very little cultivation hardly more than 

 is required for the use of the farm, and in many fields 

 even this little is carried on under difficulties on 

 account of the stones. The stones are taken out and 

 piled on to the walls or hedges at the side, and 

 though this process has been going on for centuries 

 many boulders and huge blocks of granite still remain 

 in the little fields. I was amused one day at the sight 

 of a field of only about two acres on which I counted 

 135 stones appearing like huge mushrooms and toad- 

 stools over the ground. Corn had been grown on it, 

 and I asked the farmer how it was managed. He 

 answered that he would laugh to see a man and 

 horses from any other part of the country try to 

 cultivate that field and others like it. Here the 

 men are used to it, and horses know their part 

 so well that if the share touches a stone they stop 

 instantly and wait for the ploughman's word to 

 move on. 



This same farmer told me that one day last 

 summer a lady visitor staying in the neighbourhood 

 came to where he was doing some work and burst out 

 in praise of the place, and told him she envied him 

 his home in the dearest, sweetest, loveliest spot on 

 earth. "That's what you think, ma'am," he returned, 

 "because you're here for a week or two in summer 

 when it's fine and the heath in bloom. Now I think 

 it's the poorest, ugliest, horriblest place in the whole 



