176 NOTES ON IRISH NATURAL HISTORY. 



and some beautifully floury. The season for each would have 

 come round in its turn, but the Irishman knows but one sea- 

 son for setting potatoes, and one for getting them in. I re- 

 marked that the only criterion by which an Irishman judges 

 of the value of his potato crop, is the vigour of the haulm, 

 and this every horticulturist in England would consider 

 most fallacious ; for it is well known that the portions above 

 and below ground often increase or decrease, in an inverse 

 ratio. A second fault is the carelessness with which they are 

 harvested ; throughout the West and South of Ireland, at the 

 inns, you will constantly see halves and fractional parts of po- 

 tatoes, which almost everyone rejects, and which are, therefore, 

 wasted. At Ross I made many enquiries about the price of 

 potatoes, seeing that root was so staple an article of agricul- 

 ture. I found the then price was 3jc?. to 4jc?. per stone of 

 14 lbs., that they had been as low as 2jc?., and this only a 

 short time previously ; but owing to the failure in the west, 

 a very considerable export of potatoes from Ross to Clifden, 

 Galway, Tralee, &c., had taken place ; and this diminution of 

 supply had raised the price : at Tralee, the price of potatoes 

 was 6je/., at Galway, 7d., and at Clifden 7^d. per stone, when 

 I was at those towns ; this is an unusually high price, and 

 does not correspond with the price of labour, Qd. or at most 

 ^d. per day. I hope the readers of the ' Magazine of Natural 

 History ' will not grumble at this dissertation on potatoes : 

 if they do, I can make no apology for its introduction ; for 

 I conceive a true lover of his race, as a naturalist ought to 

 be, cannot consider the welfare of the Irish peasant a sub- 

 ject beneath his notice ; and I believe the introduction of a 

 dozen good productive varieties of the potato would be a 

 blessing to Ireland, far less equivocal, that the political nos- 

 trums so frequently proposed. 



At Clonroche, on the road between Ross and Enniscorthy, 

 I was struck by the preparations making by the tenants of 

 Lord Carew, to give him a public dinner. A tent of enor- 

 mous size had been erected, and the expense defrayed by 

 rather more than three hundred tenants : I enquired whether 

 this was a return for any particular popular act on the part of 

 his lordship, but found that it was simply a testimony of re- 

 spect and esteem. 



In the journey from Waterford to Enniscorthy I saw none but 

 the commoner ferns, Polystichum aculeatum becoming more 

 abundant, and Osmunda regalis more rare. Enniscorthy is 

 an old and large town, built on the side of a hill, and by every 

 approach you enter it through a long line of very humble, 

 and not particularly clean cottages ; all the good buildings 



