ood potatoes
within ten miles round the town." "In Cavan, Westmeath, Galway, and
Kerry, the fields emit intolerable effuvia." "The failure this year is
universal in Skibbereen."[108]

In a letter published amongst the Parliamentary papers, Father Mathew
writes: "On the 27th of last month [July] I passed from Cork to Dublin,
and this doomed plant bloomed in all the luxuriance of an abundant
harvest. Returning on the 3rd instant [August] I beheld with sorrow one
wide waste of putrefying vegetation. In many places the wretched people
were seated on the fences of their decaying gardens, wringing their
hands and wailing bitterly the destruction that had left them
foodless."[109]

Such were the words of terror and despair in which the destruction of
the food of a whole people was chronicled; a people who had but just
passed through a year of deadly famine; a people still surrounded with
starvation--looking forward with earnest and longing expectancy to the
new harvest--but, alas! their share of it had melted away in a few short
days before their eyes, and, there they were, in their helpless myriads
before Europe and the world, before God and man, foodless and
famine-stricken, in a land renowned for its fertility, and this, ere the
terrible fact could be fully realised by many of their countrymen at
home; whilst it was doubted, or only half believed by unsympathizing
absentees; who, distant from the scene, are always inclined to think,
with a grudging suspicion, that accounts of this kind are either false
or vastly exaggerated, to furnish an excuse for withholding rent, or for
appealing in some way to their pockets.

The failure of 1845 did not prevent the people from planting potatoes
very largely in 1846, in which year, according to one account, the
quantity of land under potatoes in Ireland, was one million two hundred
and thirty seven thousand four hundred and forty one acres; the produce
being valued at L15,947,919 sterling;[110] but according to another
account it was very much larger, being, as estimated by the Earl of
Rosse, two millions one hundred thousand acres, valued at
L33,600,000.[111] The great discrepancy between these two accounts
arises from there being no authoritative official returns on the
subject. The truth, no doubt, lies somewhere between them.

The crop looked most healthy in the earlier part of Summer. Towards the
close of July, the potato fields were in full blossom, and in every way
so promis