102 Monthly Agricultural Report. [JULY, 



fete frequency of the easterly winds, and the quantity of rain which has fallen, we may 

 indulge the hope of a mild and fortunate blooming season for the wheat, and of exemp- 

 tion from excess in the summer rains. 



Wheat, on the best lands, is said to be so rank and luxuriant, that, should it fail in 

 grain, there will be no lack of straw. The lands, however, were so thoroughly pulve- 

 rized and mellowed by the latter frost, that it may be well hoped they will be able to 

 carry a heavy crop both of straw and corn. The Lent corn and pulse, universally, are 

 said to have an appearance as promising as is expected in the most fruitful season. Par- 

 tial complaints have been made of damage to the oats, from the grub and wire- worm j 

 and it is to be regretted that we hear too much of foul tilths, and of crops of weeds 

 equally luxuriant with the corn. This has always been a blot in the escutcheon of 

 British agriculture. To make the most of land, surely it ought to be restricted to one, 

 the profitable one, and not to be exhausted by a double crop ; and, in rational proba- 

 bility, those farmers who are so extremely solicitous for wide drilling and cleaning 

 their root crops, would not find their attention misapplied if directed also to their per- 

 haps equally important crops of corn. Getting in all the root-crops is by this time 

 finished, and most successfully ; the breadths extensive, beyond all former experience 

 one of the best features in our present Husbandry. The high prices which butchers* 

 meat has borne gives a full sanction to this extended culture. Indeed we are now in 

 the state which the old French economists represented as the acme of national prospe- 

 rity exuberant plenty and high price. Some suspicious hints have reached us, 

 respecting the number of labourers even yet unemployed, and on the parish lists. The 

 weather has been thus far propitious to the hay harvest, and a heavy burden may be 

 expected, with plentiful aftermath. The hops have suffered most from the north-east 

 malady, but to what degree cannot be yet ascertained. The clip of wool has not 

 been heavy 5 but the quality fully answers expectation, considering the difficulties and 

 short keep of the past winter. Fat cattle, and fat things of all kinds, find extraordinary 

 prices j and stores are improved in price, excepting where money and keep run short. 

 More complaints since our last, of " the uncommon scarcity of money causing a stag- 

 nation in all country dealing." But this, however correct, must not be lugged into the 

 hacknied subject of currency, with which it has no more connexion than with the 

 lunar influences. There is money plenty, in both town and country, for those who can 

 produce a title to it, which many an unfortunate farmer cannot. By accounts from the 

 north, wool is at last making a start, although at a low price. Two of our Essex landed 

 gentlemen, Mr. Tower and Mr. Westerne, have, as we conceive, rationally and meri- 

 toriously, persevered in the breeding and improvement of Merino sheep two of which, 

 the property of Mr. Westerne, have lately been slaughtered in London, of the weight 

 of eleven stone, at three years old, the animals wearing their wool unshorn to that 

 period. The weight of mutton obtained is probably of most consequence in the case, 

 since length of staple is not the prime object in fine wool. Mr. Tower, with a sound 

 judgment, has adopted the plan of winter sheltering and well feeding his Merino sheep 

 the mode, and the only mode, which has enabled the sheep- farmers of the Continent 

 to excel us in the fineness of clothing- wool. This seems to have been so prolific a 

 season for fruit, the grape more especially, and for all garden productions, that the tax 

 of spring blight will not be felt. The metropolis was never more early or more plen- 

 teously supplied with every necessary. The horse markets are overdone with numbers 

 not, indeed, of good ones, which was never the case, even in England. The Corn 



