1831.] Agricultural Report. 685 



The month of April, bating a few days, has been sufficiently lauded. -The com- 

 mencement of the present month, we fear, balanced the account of profit and loss 

 too heavily on the adverse side. Deluges of rains, with the wind on the unfavour- 

 able side of the compass, succeeded by sharp frosts, ice and snow. The fruit 

 trees, laden with the most promising shew of blossom and bud, were the first and 

 greatest sufferers. Much of the wall-fruit is irrecoverably cut off, and in the great 

 orchard counties, where upon a farm, the fruit, had the season proved genial, might 

 have realized 500 or 600, two or three frosty nights have in prospectu caused a 

 defalcation to the amount of two thirds. All the corn and pulse crops and the 

 artificial grasses have shared, more or less, in the calamity. The wheat, happily 

 the most nardy, as most important, has stood the shock, with least injury; but 

 some of the poor, heavy land wheats appear yellow and rough, and that which is 

 worse, to look forward, a nidus is provided for the incubation and prolific increase of 

 the blight insect. The wheats, nevertheless, on all good dry lands, are strong and 

 luxuriant, and with a genial blooming season will no doubt produce a profitable 

 crop. Oats have resisted the atmospheric attack, as most hardy, with the least 

 injury. Barley has suffered much, and beans ; peas most of all ; and it is said, there 

 is a considerable breadth which it will be advantageous to plough up. It is not 

 possible that the hops, the most sensitive of all our crops, can have escaped ; the 

 fly has appeared, and the hop market has advanced fifteen to twenty per cent. 

 Hops seven or eight years old, are most in request. A countryman of ours, Mr. 

 Adams, the celebrated meteorologist, has noticed the late severity of the weather 

 on the 7th current, observing, that " every tree and shrub, more or less, felt the 

 extreme severity." We join him in opinion that the climate of this country has 

 retrograded, in comparison with former days. He commenced his meteorological 

 career in 1774 ; without pretending to any character in that science, we can say, in 

 a single instance, we preceded him, having lately looked over a daily attentive 

 register of the weather, which we kept in Suffolk, in the year 17C8. It was the 

 most genial, constant and beautiful spring we ever witnessed. What a strange 

 atmospheric contrast ! With a north-east wind during two or three days last past, 

 we have enjoyed a mild and genial temperature. 



Never was there less of the various grass seeds left after the season, but that of 

 turnips has been plentiful and cheap. Since the late severe frosts, the weather has 

 continued dry and mild, considering that the wind, with the exception of a single 

 day, has blown from the north-east or east, south-east. A favourable and timely 

 turn with genial showers, would work miracles of improvement on all the crops. 

 The grasses are forward beyond expectation, and there is a fair prospect of another 

 great grass and hay year. Good English oak and other timber has had a slight 

 advance, and also bark a somewhat greater, both from its scarcity on account of the 

 impossibility of securing it from the state of the weather, and from the tanning trade 

 being late open. The Lapland cabbage-tree, which attains the height of four or five 

 feet, and the leaves of which are upwards of a foot in length, has been naturalized in 

 France as a cattle food. It resists, unaffected, the severest and longest frosts. Such is 

 the scarcity of English wheat, that the immense importations, however they occa- 

 sionally affect the markets, yet have not the effect of reducing prices below that 

 rate which must be deemed high, and which well remunerates the fortunate dry 

 land farmer. Barley and oats are in request and advancing in price. As to live 

 stock, pigs, notwithstanding the immense import from Ireland, are again some- 

 what dearer. This is a kind of stock, into the breeding of which our English 

 farmers generally decline entering to any great extent, from an aversion to the 

 trouble attendant upon it. The cattle markets and fairs, for both lean and store 

 stock, have been amply supplied, the stock going off with various success to the 

 sellers, but chiefly on account of the advanced season, at reduced prices. Good 

 sheep and lambs have suffered little reductions in price, from their scarcity ; but 

 all the breeders and graziers on dubious lands are under great apprehensions on 

 the score of the rot, the infection of which seems to have yet suffered no check. 

 Good cart horses hold their price, the prime sizes of which, fit for London work, 

 have reached the enormous rate of 70 and 80. The best fresh saddle and coach 

 horses have suffered no reduction. 



In SCOTLAND, our accounts of the wheat crop are still more unfavourable. A 

 greater breadth than before noted has been ploughed up, and re-sown with spring 

 crops ; and that which to us is a novel practice, among much of the wheat suffered 

 to remain, oats or barley has been sown upon it. Of their spring crops and grasses 

 the account is flattering, and their pastures are filled with stores purchased at a 

 low price. The Tay is burdened with the number of foreign ships laden with corn 

 Their potatoe husbandry has been forward and successful, and in the north, that 

 best of all late potatoes, the red species, from the vast demand for the London 

 market, has been cultivated to such an extent as to cause an apprehension that it 

 may interfere disadvantageously with the culture of other crops. We have not 



