208 CIVIC BIOLOGY 



scope, and may be prepared to conclude that its final solution 

 must depend on intelligent, world-wide cooperation. 



Irish famine. It was the great famine in Ireland in 1845- 

 1847 that opened the eyes of the whole Avorld to what a 

 fungous disease of a plant might mean to a people, and the 

 awakening that followed marks the begmning of modern 

 plant pathology. The case illustrates, too, the apparent 

 suddenness of the attack, and also the total destruction of 

 the crop the second year if rotation is not resorted to. 

 Ireland had become densely populated, a large part of the 

 people were almost wholly dependent on the potato for 

 food, and the fungus that caused the famine Avas the late 

 blight, or rot, of the pot'dto — Fhi/tojjhthoni iiifesfcai.^. 



Tlie harvest of 1815 proiui.sed to be the richest gathered for iiiauy 

 years. Suddeuly, in one short month, in one week it might be said,, 

 the withering breath of a simoom seemed to sweep the land, blasting 

 all in its path. T myself saw whole tracts of ]>otato growth changed in 

 one night from smiling Inxuriance to a shriveled and blackened waste. 

 A shout of alarm arose. But the buoyant nature of the Celtic peasant 

 did not yet give way. The crop was so profuse that it was expected 

 the healthy portion would reach an average result. Winter revealed 

 the alarming fact that the tubers had rotted in ]>it and storehouse. 

 Nevertheless the farmers, like hapless men who double their stakes 

 to recover losses, made onlv more strenuous exertions to till a larger 

 breadth in 184(3. Although already feeling the pinch of sore distress, 

 if not actual famine, thev worked as if for dear life ; they begged and 

 borrowed on any terms the means whereby to crop the land once more. 

 The pawn offices were choked with the humble finery that had shone 

 at the village dance or the christening feast; the banks and money- 

 lenders were besieged with appeals for credit. Meals were stinted, 

 ])acks were bared. Anything, anything to tide over the interval to 

 the harvest of ''Forty-six." O God, it is a dreadful thought that 

 all this effort was but more surelv leading them to ruin I It was 

 this harvest of Forty-six that sealed their doom. Not partially Init 

 completely, utterly, hopelessly, it perished. As in the previous j^ear, 

 all promised brightly up to the close of July. Then, suddenly, in a 

 night, whole areas were blighted; and this time, alas! no portion 



