PKOPOKTION BETWEEN POPULATION AND FOOD. 131 



ill 



11° 



Dunshaughlin (Meath) 100 

 Enniscorthy (Wexford) 103 

 Ardee (Louth & Meath) 129 

 Downpatrick (Down) 124 



456 57 5383 441 



Average, 114 14£ Average, 1345| 110£ 



The first four unions thus show an average of 114 

 people for every hundred acres of grain ; the last four 

 of 1345 people for the same quantity. The second 

 column shows the natural consequence of this difference 

 of population. Fourteen acres of potatoes for every 

 hundred of grain sufficed for the necessities of the popu- 

 lation in the four best unions, while the prodigious 

 numbers in the four worst compelled a resort to an 

 inferior but more productive food, and produced a pro- 

 portion of 110 acres of potatoes to every 100 acres of 

 grain. There was thus nearly a total dependence on 

 the potato ; for, if we take the four first unions as ap- 

 proximating to a right proportion between population 

 and grain produce, we shall find that twelve out of every 

 thirteen people in the worst unions were wholly depen- 

 dent on the cultivation of that root. 



The social system of the West of Ireland may truly 

 be said, therefore, to have been based on the potato. 

 The con-acre labour enabled men without capital to 

 compete with each other for land ; hence the rents 

 steadily increased ; and the evil was perpetually 

 extending, from the effects of this food producing a 

 contented indolence in the habits of the people, 



