776 
Profit-Sharing in Agriculture, 
perty ; such Notes being exchanged for money for the purchase only of such 
necessary articles as the farm did not produce. Care was taken to exclude 
objectionable characters by ballot of the members and, if necessary, by the 
veto of the proprietor. The conditions of the holding were, that if the 
stipulated amount of produce for rent and interest was not paid at the end 
of the first year, or if the stock advanced deteriorated in quantity or value, 
or the cultivation receded, then the proprietor should hare power to take 
back the fiii-m into his own hands. The value of the produce required to 
pay rent and interest was 900/. a year ; the number of acres to be farmed 
was 622 — 326 of which were arable." 
The value of the experiment may be best appreciated by the 
following quotation from Mr. Fare's " Co-operative Agri- 
culture " : — 
" 'We formerly,' said one of the labourers in speaking of their condition 
when working under the direction of a steward, ' had no interest either in 
doing a great deal of work, doing it well, or in suggesting improvements, as 
all the advantages and all the praise wei'e given to a tyrannical taskmaster 
for his attention and watchfulness. AVe were looked upon as merely 
machines, and his business was to keep us in motion. For this reason it 
took the time of three or four of us to watch him, and when he was fairly 
out of sight, you may depend we did not hurt ourselves by too much labour; 
but now that our interest and our duty are made to be the same, we have 
no need of a steward at all.' 
" Before the society was established the labourers conceived their own 
interest opposed to that of their employers, and would attend to nothing 
beyond their appointments for the passing moment. If a bullock broke over 
a fence and trampled down the wheat, they would say, ' It's no business of 
ours ; let the herdsmen see to it ; ' and thus the wheat was destroyed 
because they got neither profit nor thanks for their extra trouble. They 
conceived it to be their interest to encourage clandestinely the destruction 
of property, believing that it would create a greater demand for their labour. 
But after the society commenced, this order of things was reversed. A 
single potato was by many of them very reluctantly wasted, for they found 
that the conservation of the property was the saving of their own labour. 
Thus the same faculty of mind — self-interest — produced opposite results 
when surrounded by opposite controlling circumstances." 
If anything more v?ere required to prove how great a trans- 
formation was worked by the adoption of this principle, that 
proof would be forthcoming in the resolution passed by the Eala- 
hine labourers at the last general meeting of the association : — 
"AVe, the undersigned, have experienced for the last two years con- 
tentment, peace, and happiness, under the arrangements introduced by Mr. 
Vandeleur and Mr. E. T. Craig. At the commencement we were opposed 
to the plans proposed by them ; but on their introduction we found our 
condition improved, our wants more regularly attended to, and our feehngs 
towards each other at once entirely changed irom jealousy, hatred, revenge, 
to confidence, friendship, and forbearance." 
Unfortunately for Ireland, this most promising experi- 
ment, which in two short years had benefited landowner and 
labourers alike, liad increased tlie rent, the rate of wages, and 
the produce of the farm, and had caused " drunkenness, disorder. 
