358 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



will satisfy them. The accounts we have heard of the sufferings of 

 many of the poorer classes in different parts of the country, is ap- 

 palling. Will it be believed, that a clergyman, the Reverend Mr. 

 Blanshard, has had the heart to imprison a labouring man for three 

 months, because his cottage does not afford sufficient to cover the 

 amount of two years tithe upon his miserable wages ! The earnings 

 of such poverty-stricken objects as the half-naked girls who scrape 

 cockles on the sea coast, are valued at a penny a head ! 



Go your lengths, good friends ! we are delighted to see you so em- 

 ployed ; we heartily wish you such success as may stimulate you to 

 encreased exertions ; assuredly, then, shall we be the sooner quit of 

 you. With your own hands are you digging the pit into which you 

 must fall ; we are sorry for the many just and good men who may 

 suffer, without whom the system would have long ago fallen to pieces ; 

 but the time is fast approaching when justice shall be dealt out to all 

 classes, and we guess what sort of share will be set apart for these 

 wolfish spoilers. 



AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



WHEAT HARVEST, which commenced on some few of the most forward 

 soils in the last week of July, may be reported as having been finished on 

 such by the middle of the present month ; and at the date hereof, it is 

 scarcely to be supposed that there is any wheat abroad throughout this coun- 

 try. A finer and less expensive wheat harvest no living man has witnessed. 

 As a peculiarity of the season, the wheat being finished, a pause ensued in va- 

 rious parts, neither the barley being ready for the scythe, nor. in fact, any other 

 crop. Business has however proceeded with the most forward crops, but it 

 will take a considerable portion of next month ere a complete finish can be 

 given to this most nationally important occupation. 



We speak from old experience let no man set up as an agricultural pro- 

 phet, or risk predictions of events dependent upon the most vacillating, 

 variable, and uncertain of all nature's phenomena the action and course of 

 the atmosphere. A retrospect of the farming events, and the variety of sage 

 opinions held and broached during the present year, will prove an admirable 

 lesson in the case. For our own share, we do not wish to stand excused. 

 There are certainly some favourable reports of the wheat crops, especially as 

 to quality and weight ; but they proceed chiefly from the best and most 

 favoured soils, either as to local position, weather, or tillage. Perhaps on 

 such, the crop may prove a full average in point of quantity, the weight and 

 quality of the sample being of the highest order. Some samples of this 

 description have reached market. A parcel of red wheat, of the species 

 denominated the " golden drop," from the famous and leading wheat 

 county ESSEX, was lately sold at Mark Lane, which weighed 661bs the 

 8 -gallon bushel, clear of the sack. These, however, are indeed rara aves in 

 terris, the average weight being from 58 to GOlbs. The general accounts 

 represent the wheat crop of the present season as much inferior to the last, 

 both in quantity and quality, grain and straw : in fine, considerably below 

 an average. It has received great and serious injuries from the long and 

 unseasonable prevalence of cold northerly and easterly winds, these check- 

 ing by night the vegetation and growth fostered and promoted by the solar 

 heat during the day. This cause has induced its legitimate and well-known 

 effects, more or less, throughout England. It is said there is more smut in 



