FAMINE. 129 



weight. After several crops of oats, a crop of bigg, 

 or four-rowed barley, was taken. Then remaining 

 in lay a year, the land was again broken up to un- 

 dei'go the same wretched rotation. The outtieid was 

 kept in a state of absolute reprobation. It was 

 cropped with oats and grass, without dung or other 

 manure. 



As there were few or no. enclosures, the cattle 

 were either tethered or herded during the summer 

 months, and from the end of harvest, till the ensuing 

 seed-time, were suffered to poach the fields. Starved 

 during the winter, they were scarcely able to rise 

 without aid in the spring, and perpetually harassed 

 during summer, were never in a fit condition for 

 market. 



The state of the markets was so low, and so little 

 public credit established, that no tenant could 

 command money to stock his farm, and few land- 

 lords could raise tlie means for improving their 

 estates. 



The consequences of this mismanagement were de- 

 plorable. The people, having hardly any substitute 

 for oatm^^al, were entirely at the mercy of the season. 

 The price of meal fluctuated, and in unfavorable sea- 

 sons dearth or famine imavoidably ensued. About 

 the j^ear 1700 there were a succession of bad 

 seasons, which reduced the county of Ayr to the 

 lowest gradation of want, and hundreds of families 

 had to fly for subsistence to the north of Ireland. In 

 these seasons of misery, the poor people not unfre- 

 queutly have been obliged to subsist by bleeding 

 7 



