In the next year, 1724, this pamphleteer was answered by an anonymous M.P., who mentions potatoes twice. Arguing against what he calls "extravagant stocks," he says: "Formerly (even since Popery) it was thought no ill policy to be well with the parson, but now the case is quite altered, for if he gives him [_sic_] the least provocation, I'll immediately stock one part of my land with bullocks and the other with potatoes ... so farewell tithes."[8] The fact of potatoes not being titheable at this period seems to have encouraged their cultivation. The next passage goes to show that they were becoming the food of those who could afford no better. Speaking of high rents, and what he calls "canting of land" by landlords, he says: "Again, I saw the same farm, at the expiration of the lease, canted over the improving tenant's head, and set to another at a rack-rent, who, though coming in to the fine improvements of his predecessor, (and himself no bad improver,) yet can scarce afford his family butter to their potatoes, and is daily sinking into arrears besides."[9] From the tone of this passage, and from the context, the writer seems to regard the potato as food to be used only by the very poorest; for he adduces its use to show to what a state rack-renting can bring even an industrious farmer. The burthen of all the pamphlets of this period dealing with the land question, was an attack on landowners for their excessive desire to throw land into grass. One published in 1727 has this passage: "By running into the fancy of grazing after the manner of the Scythians, they [the landowners] are every day depopulating the country."[10] In another, printed in the same type, and apparently by the same hand, we read: "To bestow the whole kingdom on beef and mutton, and thereby drive out half the people, who should eat their share, and force the rest to send sometimes as far as Ægypt for bread to eat with it, is a most peculiar and distinguished piece of public economy of which I have no comprehension."[11] At this time there was extreme want in the country, on account, it was thought, of the great quantity of land which, within a short period, had been put out of tillage; graziers (whom the writer calls "that abominable race of graziers") being mad after land then as they are now. But there were other causes. William the Third, at the bidding of the English Parliament, annihilated the flourishing woollen manufacture of Ireland; her trade with the Colonies was not only cramped, but ruined, by the navigation laws in force; which, amongst other things, enacted that no colonial produce could come to Ireland until it had at first entered an English port, _and had been landed there_. Thus, whilst the fact that vast tracts of the soil had been put out of cultivation compelled the country to buy food abroad, the unjust and selfish destruction of her trade and commerce by England left her without the money to do so.