IRELAND. 355 



potato crop, at once the cause and effect of the excess, 

 was proportionately extended, and absorbed the whole 

 attention, labour, and manure of the country. Of all 

 known crops, the potato furnishes, particularly in Ire- 

 land, the largest quantity of human food upon a given 

 surface. This renders it one of the most valuable gifts 

 of Providence, but only on condition that it is not too 

 greatly extended, as then it becomes a scourge, for it 

 exhausts without renewing the means of production. 



Experience has too well proved the danger of depending 

 upon one product as food for a whole nation. Besides, 

 the potato, by itself, constitutes a gross food, and is not 

 nearly so nourishing as an equal weight and bulk of 

 cereals and leguminous food a sufficient reason for not 

 making it the staple article of human consumption. It 

 is liable also to casualties different from those which 

 befall the grain crops, and this makes it an inestimable 

 complement to these crops, but should prevent it being 

 relied upon as the sole article of food. The true place of 

 the potato, in a well-ordered rural economy, is as a plen- 

 tiful provision for cattle, and a supplement to that of 

 man, so that, in the event of other crops failing, this 

 resource might supply the deficiency. But Ireland was 

 not in a position to choose the best ; necessity called, and 

 required to be obeyed. The potato already occupied a 

 third of the arable land, and threatened to extend further ; 

 it alone formed three-fourths of the food of the peasantry, 

 the other fourth consisting also of an inferior food 

 namely, oats. 



So long as these two productions were obtainable in 

 any quantity, the population of small tenantry, although 

 badly off, yet managed to exist, and unfortunately multi- 

 plied. When the crop happened to fail, or only to de- 

 crease, scarcity decimated their numbers ; and when, on 



