COS Agricultural Report. [Nov. 



to be, that the super field average in bulk consists in the extraordinary number of ears, 

 but which are not equal to the expected product in corn when threshed. It is still the 

 received opinion, that wheat will prove a fair average throughout the three kingdoms, the 

 quality various as the seasons have been, and the soils upon which it was sown. Oats are 

 now ascertained to be the most exuberant crop. Barley is in sufficient quantity, but in 

 some districts nearly three parts of it is stained and of inferior quality, though fortunately 

 but little grown or sprouted. Potatoes, with some exceptions in the north, come well out 

 of the ground on all proper soils, and their husbandry is nearly finished. Of seeds there 

 is nothing to detail at present, but that of late the weather has been highly favourable for 

 them, and that much clover was left for seed. Of that precarious article the hop, (he 

 quantity will be as great as could be expected from a season like the past; namely, about 

 half an average crop, fine quality, at no rate abundant. The stocks of old hops of late 

 years seem generally to have been very considerable, and such they are at present. 20. 

 per cwt. have been given for the finest Farnham hops ; common price 8. to 12. We 

 have observed some Swedish turnips promising, but in general that root is deemed a 

 failure, as also is cole seed. In some parts the backward growth of turnips appears, in a 

 great measure, attributable to deficient culture. Of beans the crop will be large, both in 

 pod and straw ; but although this pulse when shocked and tied takes less harm in the 

 field from rain than any other produce, yet much of the crop is too damp and soft for 

 immediate use, and will be kept until spring, with more advantage stacked abroad than 

 in the barn. Of peas the early judgment was correct ; they are on the whole the most 

 deficient of this year's crops. Mangold, or cattle beet, perhaps the smallest breadth 

 which we have had of late years, looks at present in a healthful state. Winter vetches 

 (tares) sowing in vast quantities, for spring feed, which it may be expected will be an 

 article in great request. 



Accounts of live stock, and indeed of the whole of our country affairs, are so various and 

 conflicting, that it is no easy task to produce a general view which shall prove tolerably 

 accurate, or even intelligible. At the great cattle, sheep, and horse fair of Ballinasloe, in 

 Ireland, business was said to be very dull, money scarce, and prices low. On the other 

 hand, at the October Tryst, Falkirk, N.B., there was an unprecedented good market, the 

 stocks large, and the sales particularly brisk. In our Englis'i fairs a similar discrepancy 

 prevails. In some a limited stock found a ready sale ; in others, the stocks were so 

 large, that the greater part were driven away unsold. Prices are extremely various for the 

 same kind of stock. The butter and cheese trade is reviving wonderfully from its late 

 depression. The cattle exposed to sale are almost universally in an inferior state to that 

 which would seem warranted from the immense crops of this year's herbage, but which has 

 failed of its usual nutritive quality from the unseasonable cold and moisture. From a 

 similar cause, the yearling beasts in the west have been much subject to the disease called 

 the quarter evil. Accounts of the rot in sheep have become more and more alarming, 

 insomuch that buyers hesitate to bargain without a warrantry, and heavy losses have been 

 already sustained, some farmers having sent unsound sheep to Smithfield, the return for 

 which was sixpence a head, after all expenses had been defrayed. Cows dull of sale and 

 cheap. Pigs in great numbers, yet seeming to hold their price, with a call for large stores 

 in Berks and Hants. Good cart colts are of ready sale, and the horse trade generally in 

 its pristine state, valuable ones commanding a high price. It seems an invariable feature 

 in our English markets for corn and cattle, quality is the great object, and will find its 

 value, whilst inferior articles remain in the utmost state of depression. The price of 

 wool, as might be expected, has had a trifling decline in some few places, but the general 

 aspect of the market is that of a yet probable advance, the growers having disposed of the 

 whole of their old stocks. 



Intelligence from nearly every part of the country teems with discontent, and from too 

 many is really alarming. It is apprehended that farming is on the wane, and that the 

 game is nearly up with the tenantry. The vast number of sales, and farms to be let, 

 though not unprecedented, according to the common assertion, afford but too strong a 

 confirmation. The causes assigned for this general calamity are fiscal oppression and 

 foreign competitors. The complainants, however, should not be unmindful that, in the 

 first instance, the landed interest and its dependents were among the most powerful advo- 

 cates of that long and burdensome war, which, if it enriched them during its continuance, 

 bequeathed to the country that load of debt and taxation which has since so grievously 

 oppressed it; in the second, that from the vast increase of population, and other causes, 

 which it might be invidious to adduce, our national subsistence could not be obtained, 

 independently of a foreign supply. This, as a general proposition the complainants do not 

 attempt to deny, nor indeed could they rationally do so in the face of their own voluntary 

 recourse to foreign purchases on so many and various occasions. Nor do they object to 

 the corn laws fundamentally, but to the system of averages, as productive of collusion and 

 fraud, and calculated to promote the interested views of speculators. This system it 

 appears to be the general aim of the farming associations to get exchanged for a fixed 

 duty on foreign corn imported. The question obviously cannot be debated here, but we 

 will venture to say that it appears devoid of the great consequence attached to it. The 

 great and sovereign remedies appear to us to be a reduction, speedy as is practicable, of 

 all unnecessary and corrupt taxation, together with an improved and superior fanning 



