he
people, at least for nine months of the year, to be potatoes and milk,
excepting parts of Ulster, where they had oatbread, and sometimes flesh
meat. In the South, for the labourers of Sir Lucius O'Brien and their
families, consisting of two hundred and sixty-seven souls, the quantity
of potatoes planted, as appears from a paper given to him, was
forty-five acres and a quarter, ranging from a quarter of an acre to
four acres for each family. As to yield, the lowest he gives is forty
barrels per acre, Irish of course; and the highest reported to him was
at Castle Oliver, near Bruff, namely, one hundred and fifty barrels
(Bristol).[32] The average produce of the entire country he gives at
three hundred and twenty-eight bushels per acre--about sixty-six
barrels. "Yet, to gain this miserable produce," he says, "much old hay,
and nineteen-twentieths of all the dung in the kingdom is employed."
Potatoes grown on the coast were frequently sent to Dublin by sea; and
Lord Tyrone told Arthur Young at Curraghmore, that much of the potatoes
grown about Dungarvan were sent thither, together with birch-brooms. The
boats were said to be freighted with _fruit_ and _timber_!

Amongst the endless varieties of the potato which appeared from time to
time, that known as the "apple" was the best in quality, and stood its
ground the longest, having been a favourite for at least seventy or
eighty years. The produce recorded above as raised by Mr. Wynne Baker
was as we have seen from this species, what kind gave the still greater
yield at Castle Oliver is not recorded. Thus it is perfectly clear that
in 1780, and even before that time, the staple food of the Irish nation
was once again the potato. In fact, it was cultivated to a far greater
extent than before 1740, which caused the population to increase with
wonderful rapidity.[33]

The prolific but uncertain root on which the Irish people became, year
after year, more dependent for existence, once again dashed their hopes
in 1821, and threw a great part of the South and West into a state of
decided famine. The spring of that year was wet and stormy, retarding
the necessary work, especially the planting of potatoes. The summer was
also unfavourable, May was cold and ungenial; in June there was frost,
with a north wind, and sometimes a scorching sun. The autumn, like the
spring, was wet and severe, rain falling to a very unusual extent. The
consequent floods did extensive injury; not merely