1832.] Agricultural Report. 711 



In truth to nature and spirited delineation, the plates exceed any thing of the 

 kind as yet offered to the scientific. We select at random the red-legged falcon, as 

 pre-eminently distinguished by ease, vigour, and chasteness of colouring ; nor, as 

 we turn the leaves, can we refrain from pausing to admire those most interesting 

 of our summer visitors, the wrynecks ; every mark, every fine and mazy line of the 

 plumage, is given with unrivalled exactness, and so felicitous is their attitude, as to 

 speak not only to the eye but the fancy also. We mnst not attempt to enter into 

 the details of every plate ; but, at once, congratulate the author on the success of 

 his labours. 



THE CHURCH OF GOD, A SERIES OF SERMONS BY THE REV. R. W. EVANS. 



SMITH, ELDER, AND Co. 



IT is not in our power to do justice to this very able work this month. It arrived 

 after our labours had closed. We have, however, glanced through the volume, 

 and see so much originality of thought and clear comprehensive reasoning through- 

 out, that we cannot help strongly recommending it to our readers. 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



THE old saw, ' May, early or late, doth make the corn to quake,' has been fully 

 verified during the present month. It set in, indeed, with the favourable circum- 

 stances of a change of wind and of weather, producing an almost instantaneous 

 improvement in vegetation of all descriptions. Unfortunately, however, we were 

 allowed but a few days' rejoicing at this happy change, when the wind returned to 

 its old chilling and ungenial quarters, continuing but too steadily therein unto 

 nearly the present date ; out accustomed as we have been to perpetually succeeding 

 reverses, we dare not entertain much confidence in the continuance of our good 

 fortune in the present improved and mild temperature. 



Doubtless considerable mischief will ensue to the crops of all kinds, from the long- 

 continued ungenial state of the weather ; yet, after all, perhaps such a long suc- 

 cession of northerly and easterly winds was never known to be attended with so 

 little damage to the crops and fruits of the earth, as in the present spring; and this 

 we attribute chiefly to the present commixture, so to phrase it, of those chilling airs 

 with the mild and vivifying breezes of the south. The blight, in any considerable 

 degree, was first discovered about the middle of last month, when the wheats, parti- 

 cularly, began to assume a yellow and sickly hue, chiefly those upon poor cold soils, 

 though those on the most fertile and in the best heart, were by no means entirely 

 exempt. This affection has of course proceeded since, with its cause, and in those 

 wheats which have suffered most, no doubt but some of the usual atmospheric 

 maladies have taken root, and the rust is already conspicuous in many parts. In 

 our next Report, we shall be able to speak more decidedly on this subject. Most 

 of our letters yet give a flattering account of the strength and luxuriance of the wheat 

 plant, rivalled though it be by weeds of equal bulk, and are sanguine as to our 

 prospects of a crop, and an early harvest. One correspondent, however, agrees 

 with our idea in the last Report, that our prospect of great plenty lies rather in the 

 extensive breadth sown, than in the actual produce to be expected. 



As we have so often remarked, complaints arrive from every quarter of the country 

 of the tremendous excess of weed vegetation, so detractive from the quantity of the 

 useful and profitable, and so exhausting to the soil ; yet we hear nothing from the 

 complainants of any effectual remedy for so fatal a grievance. We were lately 

 amused by the lamentation of an old friend from the south-west, that lie had been 

 this season prevented by the weather and other causes from clearing the red weed 

 or poppy from his extensive farm. Now, we recollect to have heard similar com- 

 plaints and threats of eradication of the self same weed from his grandfather ; yet 



