We are now arrived at the period of the potato failure, some account of which as affecting England and Scotland has been given in the respective histories.[128] “The potato disease,” so called to distinguish it from the less general and entire failure of that root which has occasionally occurred, first appeared in America in 1844, but it did not show itself in Ireland until the autumn of 1845. The early crops generally escaped its ravages, but the late or main crop was found to be so far tainted with the disease, that although much of it was susceptible of being used at the time the potatoes were dug, they afterwards rotted in the pits, and became an offensive mass unfitted for the use of man or beast. This was especially the case in the western districts; and there as well as wherever the small cottier or the conacre systems prevailed, any failure in the potato crop, even although it were small and partial, would necessarily occasion much distress, the population being in such cases generally redundant, and subsisting nearly altogether on that root. ----- [128] See ‘History of the Scotch Poor Law,’ p. 199. See also ‘History of the English Poor Law,’ 2nd vol. pp. 391-393. ----- In the present instance there was not only a failure in the quantity raised, but the portion of the crop stored for future use was known to be in jeopardy, and the distress and alarm were proportionally increased. Both were in fact excessive, the one adding to the other, and causing the most serious apprehensions throughout the country. Government participated in these apprehensions, and took early steps for obtaining 100,000_l._ worth of Indian corn from America, in anticipation of the distress and difficulties sure to arise through the failure of the potato, and for which the country itself afforded no substitute.[129] This timely supply arrived in course of the spring of 1846, and in order to its distribution, depôts were established in various places along the coast under the direction of commissariat officers, with sub-depôts in charge of the constabulary and coast-guard.[130] Wherever the ordinary supplies of food were found to be deficient, Indian meal was sold from these depôts at a moderate price, to the relief committees if any such had been formed, and likewise to all who applied for it. The meal was not however at first relished by the people, for although far more nutritious than the potato, it was new, and they preferred that to which they had been accustomed. But necessity is ever a successful controller of taste, and Indian meal which was at first disliked, and about which the most absurd stories were promulgated, became ere long, and after the mode of preparing it came to be understood, a favourite description of food with the Irish people. ----- [129]