The necessity
of buying artificial manure is a terrible necessity that American
farmers know nothing of.
I dare say the tenants expect too much in many instances, for they are
accustomed to be treated as children in leading strings. The amount of
dependence on this one and that one in superior stations is very
wonderful, but their utter helplessness to take the first step toward
better times is also wonderful. I have heard of men, by the last bad
seasons unable to buy guano, having to strip the roofs off their houses
that the rain may wash off the soot into the land to fructify it. On
account of shelter for game, it is not permissible to cut heather for
bedding, for stock, or covering for houses. Breaking this prohibition
even on land for which they pay rent and taxes is, they complain,
punished with fines of from two and sixpence to seven and sixpence for
as much as could be carried on the back.
For a farmer to get on here he must be able to buy manure. The crop on a
farm has to pay rent, which is high, and taxes, which are heavy, even if
no guard for somebody has to be paid for, or no malicious outrage is
levied for on the county in compensation, and manure, which, if got
before paying, is charged, I am told, twenty-five percent additional for
waiting; all this must be met before the support of the family can be
thought of beyond merely existing. The more one looks at the want of the
people, the more one becomes bewildered with the perplexities of the
situation, and the more hopeless about the setting of things right by
the Land Bill or anything else.
It is pleasant to hear on all sides praises of Lord Ardilaun as a high-
spirited, generous man. The slight difference of opinion between him and
his people is blamed on the fact of his not being able to understand how
poor the tenants are, or how what is little in his eyes may be life or
death to them. There was some trouble, I believe, about the building of
a causeway across to some sacred island, which was built by the people
without leave asked, or in spite of prohibition given; but in the main I
think that Lord Ardilaun is very much loved.
How it does rain in this green land. I think it rained every day of the
days I remained at Cong except the blink of sunshine that shone on the
castle and grounds the day that I went over part of the Ashford
_demesne_.
At Cong, for the first time in my life, I heard the Irish lament or
caoine for the dead. Some one was brought in from the country to be
buried in the Abbey of Cong.
