Do you swear that?
Well, of coorse I couldn't swear it out and out.
What quantity of land have you in your holding?
Well, twenty-two acres exactly, be the same more or less. [Mr. Stephens, for the landlords, said that twenty-two acres was the true area of his farm.] Five of the twenty-two acres were nothing but rocks and stones, without one blade of grass in them, so that it was seventeen acres of productive land he had, at an annual rental of £3 18s. 6d., and it was not worth that.
To the court. The last change of rent was thirty years ago.
What buildings have you?
The house is my own, and the barn. Both are thatched. [Mr. Stephens did not claim the houses.] Improvements?—Well, there are walls, but did not measure them, and small gardens.
In answer to Mr. Concannon: We claim to be entitled to take the seaweed for manure. We have no turf, nor timber to burn, and have to pay £3 a year for two boat loads of turf. The stock on his farm was a cow and a veal calf, a horse, five sheep, and eight lambs. Shears them every year, but the wool he never sells as he keeps it for his family. As for tillage, he had about eighty stone of potatoes last year, and by his stock he realized £12; that includes £6 7s. 6d. that he received for a couple of veal calves. He had no grain crops. He had a couple of pigs too. As for his stock, maybe it's little he'd have out of them coming home to his wife and childher, and his was a nice wife, thanks be to God. His sheep he brings by boat to the county of Clare, sells them at the fair of Ennistymon. Has to pay freight 3d. a head for sheep and lambs. His cattle and pigs he puts on the mail boat and sails them to Galway—the freight being 2s. 6d. for calves, and a shilling a head for pigs. And wasn't he sixteen days weatherbound in Galway last February, after the fair-day?
Mr. Concannon would produce no valuer, he felt perfect confidence in the commissioners.
This closed the tenant's case.