What was meant precisely by the west coast
does not seem to have been settled at the outset, but in answer to an
enquiry from Sir R. Routh on the subject, the Treasury, on the 31st of
October, defined it to be the country to the west of the Shannon, with
the County Donegal to the north, and Kerry to the south, with a small
corner of Cork, as far as Skibbereen, because that town was on the
western coast.[165]
We have seen the rapid increase of labourers on the Relief Works from
October to December, yet famine was always far ahead of the Government.
Their arrangements for the first famine year were made with reference to
the closing of all operations at harvest time, in 1846, but there was no
harvest that year _for the poor_; their crop had vanished before the
destroyer, and they were actually worse off at the end of August, 1846,
than they had been since the beginning of the Potato Blight. In that
year, the potatoes never came to maturity at all, and any that were
thought worth the labour of digging, were hurried to market, and sold
for any price they fetched, before they would melt away in the owners'
hands. One of the Commissariat officers asked a farmer's wife, who was
selling potatoes of this kind, what was the price of them; "two pence a
stone, sir," she replied, "is my price," but lowering her voice, she
_naively_ added, "to tell you the truth, sir, they are not worth a
penny.
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