en, who would not have been so anxious to procure con-acres,
if they did not find them in general a much cheaper mode of procuring
their staple commodity than by having recourse to the markets. The first
use a servant boy or girl makes of their earnings, is to plant
con-acres, not for subsistence, but for sale. Half an acre of potatoes
is generally the foundation of the fortune. The rent paid for potato
ground has been enormously magnified. Mr Wiggins sets it down at L12 per
acre. It may let for this price (the _plantation acre_) in the immediate
vicinity of Dublin, Belfast, or some other large cities; where, from the
contiguity of the market, the produce of a good acre will be worth from
L40 to L60, according to the rate of prices. But, in the rural
districts, such a price is never heard of; and it is only by the prices
in those districts that the condition of the people can be affected.
From L5 to L7 and L8 will be found the usual prices; and we should be
glad to know what English farmer would give upwards of _one acre three
roods_ of his best land, well tilled and highly manured, at such a
price, the renter only holding it for one crop, and paying no taxes
whatever. The average produce per acre of good con-acre will be, at
least, twenty tons of eating or marketable potatoes, independent of a
large quantity fit for seed, and for the feeding of pigs; the value of
those latter will greatly over-pay the expense of seed, planting, and
digging. And taking the price at 1s. per 112 lbs., the renter will have
L20 worth of potatoes for L8; a clear profit of L12 on the acre. It, of
course, occasionally does occur, that from failure of the seed, rot, or
other casualties, the crop may not be worth the rent; in this case an
abatement, sufficient to satisfy him, is made to the holder, or it is
left on the landlord's hands. Potatoes being a perishable crop, and a
species of food which cannot be preserved beyond a season, their price
fluctuates more than that of any other kind of provisions. Last year the
price in this "country of famine" was 4d. for 112 lbs.; in general the
prices vary from 1s. (seldom less) to 2s., and sometimes 3s., the 112
lbs.

In Ireland, good con-acres are looked on by the peasantry as a certain
source of wealth; here they are considered as a main cause of their
poverty. Who are the best judges--the people who use, or those who read
about them? But whatever may be the merit or demerit of the con-acre
system, (