Page 335 - Demo

Chapter NiNe 335
unit for human consumption) was fed to pigs, and the better-of section of the population also consumed their share, albeit as part of a more varied diet. To last through a year, a typical peasant family (two adults and ive children) relying wholly on potatoes, would have needed about four tons of potatoes and about an acre of land for cultivation. Even then, during the ‘hungry months’ of July and August, the diet had to be somehow supplemented by bought-in oatmeal or herrings. The blight reduced the harvests by at least 40%.
It is estimated that during the famine years at least one million souls died of hunger or disease, while upwards of another million emigrated to the United States, Canada, Scotland and England to escape the horrors. Considerable sufering was endured and nameless ca- lamities befell the country with great rapidity as the hunger-stricken and fever-stricken died, not only in their homes, but out in the ields, on the roads, lying in the ditches, even in the streets of the cities.
Thousands of other unfortunate wretches, unable to pay the rent demanded by their landlords, were evicted from their homes and left to perish and die by the wayside. So dread- ful did things become that in some parts of the country witnesses testify that they saw people eating grass. It is also documented that starving people were witnessed drawing blood from cattle and drinking it and in several instances people were known to have killed and ate the donkeys that had served them on their small plots.