On Wed, 2 Jul 2008 10:46:13 +0100, "Don Moody" <[email protected]> wrote: >[...] More population than agriculture can support [...] My understanding is that the potato encouraged more population than was supportable without it, by making it possible to sub-divide a plot and make potatoes a greater proportion of the crop, when more of the next generation wished to marry, and then doing it again, and again. The rate of marriage (and therefore child-bearing) among those that were left in Ireland was dramatically less at the end of the 19C than it had been at the beginning. See, for instance, http://www.springerlink.com/content/wbbkmkba8kfdvmr6/ (see also http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1090513897001037)