THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY 123 



At first Ireland was mainly a pastoral country, but in 

 the course of the eighteenth century the great natural 

 fertility of the soil was, we might almost say, dis- 

 covered, and the people increasingly applied them- 

 selves to tillage. It is well known that a productive 

 soil under tillage will support a far larger number of 

 people than the same soil under pasture. Conse- 

 quently the means of living were being largely added 

 to from generation to generation, both by the never- 

 ceasing accretions that were being made to the area 

 of cultivation, and by the increasing diversion of the 

 land from pasture to tillage. 



Another thing that favoured the numerical growth 

 of the Irish people was the fact that the potato formed 

 their staple food ; for before the deterioration of the 

 tuber which followed the great blight of 1846, it was 

 estimated that the yield of an acre of potatoes gave 

 more than twice the amount of nourishment for man 

 that was given by the yield of any other crop. In the 

 generation that preceded the great blight which affected 

 the potato, and the ensuing terrible famine that fell 

 upon the people, and the subsequent depopulation 

 by the agency of emigration, innumerable pamphlets 

 appeared both in Ireland and in England dealing 

 with the condition of the Irish people. The inciting 

 cause of their appearance was the agrarian outrages 

 committed by Captain Eock the name assumed by 

 the organised bands which signalised their track by 

 arson and murder, and differed in name only from 

 their predecessors, the Whiteboys and the Molly 



