COUNTRY LIFE
Irish Harvesters On the extreme west coast of Ireland I went to the haunts of an antique fisherman who is a mine of information on most
native subjects, the birds in the air as well as the fish in the sea. He makes his way to little rocky islands rarely visited and indeed impossible to visit in most craft and on most days. He is eloquent on the rare birds and their nests that he finds in these wildnesses. It is a liberal education to talk with him ; but that education was forbidden me on this 'occasion. Against his usual custom he had gone over to England for a succession of harvests. Not one but many men of the district had made the same journey. Indeed extra workers of any sort are hard to obtain, so large was the exodus. Every year considerable numbers of Irish go to England for seasonal work, especially fruit picking ; but the demand this year for extra workers —and in other industries than agriculture—is altogether beyond the normal. Seldom, if ever, has the demand been so great or the wages so good. Immigrant workers return home with money enough to keep them throughout the winter. The Irishman is much More mobile than the English unemployed, largely perhaps for the reason that he is singularly tolerant of the humility of his lodging. Are there any humbler homes than those in West Ireland? One that I saw consisted of exactly one small room. The whole building, made of solid enough stone, was almost a cube of about three yards or less. The rough winds encourage the bungalow with a low roof and a tiny window. How there emerge from such dark dwellings men with a gift of speech that any man of letters might envy is one of the standing marvels of civilisation !
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