124 ON THE STATE OF IRELAND. [BOOK II. 



than that of the farmers, because they have not the means 

 of sowing until too late. 



The potatoes which are eaten before they are ripe cause 

 bowel-complaints, which are very prevalent in the country 

 at these periods. 



The witnesses say that the labourers in these times of 

 famine are reduced to one meal a day ; they cannot even 

 procure cabbages. The majority have exhausted their 

 crop of potatoes by the first of April, and in May there 

 is not one of them who has a single potatoe left. From 

 this time to the month of October, the great distresses and 

 disturbances in Ireland prevail. Employment is then 

 scarce ; the wholesale dealers supply potatoes on credit, at 

 double the price they fetch for ready money, and they 

 exact besides some days' labour gratis. Without this 

 credit, one half of the population would perish. The 

 peasantry, knowing that the following year they must 

 apply to these same dealers, are very exact in paying 

 them. The small farmers are, in this respect, pretty nearly 

 on a footing with the labouring classes, but they obtain 

 credit more easily. 



The quality of the potatoes which the dealers sell at 

 this time of the year is of the worst description : they 

 have begun to sprout, so that the food of the people is 

 composed partly of potatoes in a state of germination, and 

 partly of those which are unripe ; and it is calculated that, 

 by digging them up prematurely, at least two months of 

 the food supplied in the year is lost. 



The Commissioners state, that the year in which they 

 travelled through the country they saw the people eating 

 potatoes no bigger than nuts ; that the distress is so great, 

 that the peasantry are obliged to feed on hedge-plants, and 



