Note 4 — Front matter

The following description of the state of agriculture in West Clare, previously to the failure in the potato crop in 1845, is taken from a narrative by Captain Mann of the Royal Navy, who had for some time previously been stationed in that district, in charge of the Coast Guard, and when the distress commenced, he took an active and very useful part in assisting in the measures of relief: “Agriculture at that period was in a very neglected state; wheat, barley, and oats, with potatoes as the food of the poor, being the produce. Of the first very little was produced, and that not good in quality; barley, a larger proportion and good; oats, much greater, but inferior for milling purposes. Various reasons were given for this inferiority in produce, the quality of the land and deteriorated seed being the cause generally assigned; but I would say that the population being content with, and relying on, the produce of the potato as food—which had with very few exceptions hitherto proved abundant—there was a general neglect and want of any attempt at improvement. Green crops were all but unknown, except here and there a little turnip or mangel wurzel in the garden or field of the better class,—the former scarcely to be purchased. Even the potatoes were tilled in the easiest way, (in beds called ‘lazy beds’), not in drills, so that the hoe might in a very short time clear the weeds and lighten the soil.”