The consequence is that the agrarian crisis is reduced here to its simplest expression, _i.e._, sheer impossibility to pay the rent because of total absence of the £ _s._ _d._ wherewith. Elsewhere that impossibility may be half assumed; it is certainly mixed in the plain with bad will, goaded in the peasant’s heart by that dogged desire to possess the land which is so natural in him. In the mountain it is not a political fiction that holds the sway: famine is the king; and it is the spontaneous product of the very nature of things. For the naturally infertile soil has reached here to such a degree of subdivision that it is no longer sufficient even to feed those it bears. The greater part of those wretched holdings of five or six acres are let at the nominal price of about £4, to which must be added the taxes, poor-rates, and county-cess, increasing it by a quarter or a third. Four, five, six, sometimes ten or twelve beings with human faces squat on that bit of worthless ground and till it in the most primitive manner. Money, tools, intelligence, pluck, all are wanting there. Viewing things in the most optimist light, supposing the year to have been an exceptionally good one, the potato crop to have been plentiful, the cow to have hunted out on the hill-side the necessary grass for the making of a little butter, all that will be sufficient perhaps to prevent starvation. But where will the money be found to pay Queen and landlord? Let a child or an old person eat ever so little in the year, his food cannot but represent a value. Let that value be £4. Can six acres of mountain ground managed without skill or manure, render five, six, ten times £4 a year, and a rent in addition of five to six pounds? It is sheer impossibility. A few examples. James Garey, fifty years old, married, four children. Nominal rent £5 14_s._ Two cows, one pig, eight chickens. About six acres of land. Cultivates only part of it, about three acres, where he grows potatoes; the remainder is pasture. Sold this year thirty shillings’ worth of butter; ate his potatoes from first to last; has not paid a farthing to his landlord for the last four years. Owes £6 to the draper-grocer; would never be able to pay his taxes if two of his children, who are out in domestic situations, did not send him the necessary amount to prevent execution. Widow Bridget Molony, sixty years old; five children; seven acres of land. Nominal rent £6 12_s._ Four cows, an eighteen-month-old calf, two pigs, twenty chickens. Sold £3 10_s._ of butter this year, £2 oats, 15 shillings potatoes, and a pig for £3; just sent a calf to market, offering it for £1 15_s._; did not find purchaser. Thinks herself relatively lucky, as she is owing only two years’ rent to her landlord. Two of her children have situations at Liverpool, and help her to pay the taxes.