Flax in Ireland.
273
being very cheap; there being every where store of Fish and Fowl; the ground yielding excellent Roots (and particularly[1] that bread-like root Potatoes) and withal they being able to perform their Husbandry, with such harness and tackling, as each Man can make with his own hands; and living in such Houses as almost every Man can build[2]; and every House-wife being a Spinner and Dyer of Wool and Yarn, they can live and subsist after their present fashion, without the use of Gold or Silver Money; and can supply themselves with the necessaries above named, without labouring 2 Hours per diem: Now it hath been found, that by reason of Insolvencies arising, rather from the uselessness than want of Mo-|[43]|ney among these poor People; that from 300 Thousand Hearths, which should have yielded 30 Thousand Pound per annum; not 15 Thousand Pound of Money could be Levyed: Whereas it is easily imagined, that four or five People dwelling in that Cottage, which hath but one smoke; could easily have planted a ground-plot of about 40 foot square with Flax; or the 50 part of an Acre; for so much ground will bear eight or ten Shillings worth of that Commodity; and the Rent of so much ground, in few places amounts to a penny per annum. Nor is there any skill requisite to this practice, wherewith the Country is not already familiar. Now as for a Market for the Flax; there is Imported into Holland it self, over and above what that Country produces; as much Flax, as is there sold for between Eightscore and Two Hundred Thousand Pound; and into England and Ireland is Imported as much Linnen Cloth
- ↑ S, inserts 'great plenty of that.'
- ↑ The original form of S is here represented by Roman type, Petty's corrections by Italic:
'tackle, as each man can make, and liveing in such Houses as
make wth his own hands
almost every man can build; and euery housewife.'
The interlined correction, which is much crowded, appears to have been read into the line above it, giving the text of 1690, instead of the sense which Petty intended, viz. such Houses as almost every man can make with his own hands.
R, 'Tackling as each man can make, & living in such Houses as (almost) every man can build, & every Housewife.'
