1831.] Agricultural Report. 4(37 



Immediately on the closing of our last report, a considerable reduction took place 

 in the price of wheat, occasioned by the admission of foreign at the low duty ; at 

 the same time a sudden and large advance was experienced in the flesh markets. 

 With respect to horned cattle, store or fattened sheep, pigs, and dairy produce, 

 every article is rising in price (store cattle twenty per cent, above last year's price) 

 throughout the country, notwithstanding, sheep being excepted, a most abundant 

 supply according to the old economists a true sign of national prosperity, great 

 stocks and high price. The distress of the labourers comes home to the heart of 

 every humane and considerate man, nor can there exist any doubt that farming 

 generally, is a miserable and losing concern ; since, were there no other cause, the 

 last two or three harvests were sufficient to render it such ; but as to the general 

 distress and ruin of the country, we may happily and rationally make a positive 

 demur. If the farmers of dry, good, and sound lands, have not made a living 

 profit at the late prices of corn and cattle, farming is a profitless occupation indeed ! 

 Surely the sale of Mr. Paull's stock, at Dillington farm, near Ilminster, attended 

 by upwards of one thousand persons, where Devon bulls were sold at from 35. to 

 55. each, and cows from 15. to 25. IDs., exhibits no indication of poverty 

 and distress. Wool, at double last year's price, is still advancing, and so scarce in 

 some quarters, that staplers have been obliged to discharge their sorters, having 

 no material on which to employ them. Timber is gradually rising in price, walnut- 

 tree being in great request for gun-stocks. The aversion to tithes seems to per- 

 vade the whole country, amounting in a great number of individuals, to an im- 

 placable spirit of opposition. Notwithstanding the recent date of so many severe 

 examples, a number of midnight fires have been again lighted, even within these 

 few weeks, both in the East and West ; and our letters on this subject are of a 

 very melancholy and apprehensive tone ; those from females with families, cannot 

 be read without exciting sentiments of horror and commiseration. The old 

 treacherous and malignant spirit, though repressed and smothered, is still said to 

 lie rankling and festering in the minds of the agricultural labourers. There are 

 happily fewer out of employ than has been usual of late, and their situation has 

 been in some degree amended. The just and liberal plan of allowing the married 

 men an ample portion of garden ground, is extending in all parts, and we trust will 

 become universal ; we also heartily wish success to a settled and permanent scheme 

 of emigration. The threshing machines lately destroyed or laid aside are, in 

 various parts, reconstructing and coming again into use. Hay in great plenty ; 

 turnips consumed excepting on the best lands, where they can yet be of little 

 use, as running to seed. Potatoes are plentiful and cheap, in the Western coun- 

 ties about 4s. per sack. 



As might be expected from the diseased state of the sheep, the lambing season 

 has been most unfortunate. The plague of rot is not yet stayed, but even said to 

 be still spreading, and the lambs produced by infected ewes partake of the parental 

 disease, and those Avhich survive are of little worth. Sheep have not done well 

 during the present season on turnips, a fact which need not excite admiration, 

 considering the loose and washy quality of the roots, and the nature of the disease 

 with which the animals were affiicted. The price of horses, within the last month 

 or six weeks, has had a considerable advance ; good ones, as usual, sufficiently scarce 

 in this country, so celebrated for its superior breed. 



To conclude merrily, in these disastrous times, we repeat the intelligence we 

 have had from various inhabitants of that county so highly favoured by nature and 

 fortune HERTS. " No rot in our sheep, which are doing well at less than the 

 usual expence, our plant of wheat strong and good, and our field-work more forward 

 than formerly stocks of wheat in the farmers' hands larger than usual at this 

 season." We could moreover quote a number of districts, in which the too 

 common calamities of the occupations of farming have been fortunately escaped. 



P.S. Since writing the above we have received Mr. Inglis's letter on the rot in 

 sheep the fall and condition of lambs in the counties of Kent and Sussex. We 

 return him our thanks for the communication, the facts of which have been also 

 stated to us from various parts of those counties. Mr. Inglis may convince himself 

 that we have not neglected this melancholy subject in our preceding reports, in a 

 late one of which he will find our opinion, grounded on long experience, of %t cures 

 for rotten sheep." 



Smilhjield Beef, 3s. 2d. to 4s. 6d. Mutton, 4s. to 5s. 2d Veal, 5s. to 6s. 



Pork, 4s. 2d. to 5s. 4d. Lamb, 7s to 7s. 6d. Hough fat, 2s. lOd. 



Corn Exchange. Wheat, 54s. to 84s. Barley, 28s. to 48s Oats, 22s. to 34s 



London 4lb. loaf, 10d Hay, 45s. to 84s. Clover ditto, CDs. to 105s. Straw, 

 30s. to 42s. 



Coal Exchange Coals, 21s. to 31s per chaldron. 

 Middlesex, March 25th. 



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