In the summer of 1822, as crop failures left parts of Ireland hungry, the Anglo-Irish novelist Maria Edgeworth wrote to her friend David Ricardo with a question: Was Ireland wise to depend so heavily on potatoes? Ricardo, the day’s leading economist, thought not. Ireland was mistaken, he warned, in relying on a crop prone to failure. Poor families that could afford only potatoes would have nothing to fall back on when the crop gave out. Edgeworth was unconvinced. Her inquiries among farmers on her family’s estate at Edgeworthstown, Ireland, showed that potatoes were the most profitable crop. She believed failures…

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