It is one queer feature of this mountain scenery, the entire absence of
trees. The hills look as if the face of the country had been shaved. Up
the hill sides the little fields are divided off by high, broad stone
fences, the result of gathering the stones out of the fields. The bog
land to be reclaimed requires drains three feet deep every six feet of
land.
To trench up a little field into ridges six feet apart, to gather stones
out of a little field sufficient to surround it with a four feet high
stone fence, to grub out and burn whins, to make all the improvements
with your own labor, and then to have your landlord come along with his
valuator and say, "Your farm is worth double what you pay for it; I can
get thirty shillings an acre for it," and to raise the rent to its full
value, which you must pay or go out. This sort of thing is repeated, and
repeated, in every variation of circumstances and of hardship, and the
people submit and are, as a whole, quiet and law-abiding.
I was called out of my little den to see a woman, one of the evicted
tenants of Mr. Adair. She was on her way to Letterkenny to see her son,
who is in the asylum since the eviction.
