"Someone else" wrote in message On
Thu, 8 May 2008 16:57:04 +1000, "FarmI" ask@itshall be given
wrote:
"Way Back Jack" wrote in message

TV documentaries and travelogues reveal a lot of lush "green" in those
countrysides but a relative scarcity of trees. Is it climate? Too
windy in Ireland? Sheep and/or other livestock?

(snip) Ireland suffered from
ice coverage during the Ice Ages so any trees there had to come back as
pioneer species.

Large numbers of people, 'modern farming' and trees don't go together. As
the population grew the trees would have had to go, or in some instances,
'modern farming' methods were the cause of clearance too. Ireland's
population exploded after the introduction of the potato and you can't
grow
spuds in forests so even if there had been a desire to grow more trees,
there would have been a strong disincentive to do so.

Ireland had extensive forest cover well prior to the arrival of
potatos in Europe...

Yes it did have more trees but even today Ireland has only 16.8% of land
that is arable. I don't know what the figure is for Ulster, but think it
would be higher.

which, remember, were introduced by Sir Walter
Raleigh after he returned from the New World...so you're telling me
that in the roughly 150 years between the arrival of the potato in
western Europe, including Ireland, from South America, and the Potato
Famine of the 1840s that Ireland's population grew so much that it had
also become deforested?

Do read for comprehension. You clearly did not understand what I wrote.

In addition, some of your facts are simply wrong. The potato was introduced
into Ireland by about 1600 so by the time the first cases of potato blight
were seen in 1816, so 200 years had passed not 150. The famine of 1845-1851
was the worst but not the only famine.

Ireland poulation doubled at the end of the 18th century in about a 40-50
year period till it hit 8 million. That increase did not come from grain.

Ireland's population otday is now just over 4 million.

Why do you neglect to mention the impact on farm ownership patterns
incurred by the Penal Laws?

http://local.law.umn.edu/irishlaw/land.html

You're right I didn't mention them and that was quite deliberate. Perhaps
you could knock that chip off your shoulder and explain how to grow potatoes
in a forest to feed a rapidly growing population? Or on the Burren or a bog
or some of the other non arable land?

Also you neglect to mention that the English desire to build a fleet
of warships to fight the Spanish Armada and where they obtained the
timber to do so...

You may (or may not) know a lot about Botany but you don't know much
about the natural and human history of Ireland.

And you appear to have reading difficulties so I will forgive your inability
to draw a logical conclusion based on your misunderstaning of what I wrote
or didn't write.

I know when my ancestors left Ireland, I also know why they left. You know
nothing about what I know about Ireland nor it seems about the impact of the
potato on population growth of Ireland or ideed when the famines occurred or
how long the Irish had been growing potatoes.