1831.] [ 579 ] 



MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



IN our reports, the WEATHER is invariably the prime and most interesting topic. 

 The commencement of the present month, "on the whole, was highly favourable to 

 the operations of husbandry, with the drawback, however, that the suddenness of the 

 drought rendered the heavy wet lands stubborn and cloddy, thence difficult to 

 reduce to a state of friability and fineness adapted to the reception of the seed. 

 The few showers which succeeded, countervailed, in a considerable degree, this 

 defect, and culture has since proceeded with all possible dispatch. In our last, 

 under the influence of a long- cherished opinion in favour of early sowing, we 

 regretted that so much must, of necessity, remain to be done in the present month ; 

 but, from later accounts, and indeed personal observation, we apprehend that in 

 the most backward districts, the first week in May will scarcely exhibit the 

 conclusion of the present seed season. Throughout the whole winter and spring, 

 the weather has been most capricious and embarrassing to the farmer of heavy 

 lands. On prime soils, and in the most fertile districts, beans and peas are in a 

 growing state and look well ; oats above ground, and the barley all in, which is to 

 say, the whole present business is completed. On such lands, the next object is 

 preparation of the fallows for potatoes and turnips, for which, something like an 

 early season will for them be obtained ; on others of inferior description, chiefly in 

 the west and south-west, the whole will be a late and protracted seed season. In 

 Herts, and on the whole line of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Lincolnshire, business 

 is in a comparatively forward state, and the appearance of the crops generally- 

 promising: the labourers also, in those fertile districts, are, at present, fully 

 employed at an advance of wages. Clover and other seeds have been greatly 

 reduced in price from the quantities imported, sainfoin excepted, which we do not 

 import. Little business is doing in hops, but their husbandry has commenced, the 

 trills are removed, and the roots appear strong and healthy. The stock of English 

 wheat is greatly reduced, even in the richest counties ; elsewhere, and westward, 

 there is so little in the farmers' hands, that they apprehend it will not last 'till 

 harvest ; in fact, those counties seem as much in need of foreign supply as the 

 metropolis, and the chief business of the canals and roads seems to be the transit of 

 foreign bread-corn. Barley is nearly exhausted, and the stock of malt in the hands 

 of the maltsters and brewers, is reported to be much reduced, perhaps more so than 

 at any late period. Oats, beans, and peas, compose almost the only farmers' stock. 

 Good old dry beans and spring tares sell readily, and though the wheat market 

 generally has, of late, suffered some reduction from the great quantities imported, 

 it has remained at nearly the former standard in those districts where it is so much 

 wanted. The heavy poor land wheats, particularly where sown after clover and 

 grasses, have been so devoured and thinned by the slugs, that they are not only 

 unseasonably late, but their appearance is so reduced and sickly, that at present 

 they exhibit very little promise of a crop. 



In SCOTLAND, and in the best parts of our northern border, the spring business 

 is in seasonable forwardness. In the Lothians, the best wheat districts of Scotland, 

 that crop has experienced considerable failures. Sown after beans, the slug has 

 been so busy, that great breadths of wheat have been ploughed up, and the land 

 resown with oats. Upon fallow land the wheat is thickly planted, but has a 

 weak and unhealthy appearance, those soils manured with rape-cake affording the 

 best prospect. The young sown grasses have generally failed, which has occasioned 

 a rise of from twenty to thirty per cent, on the pasture grass, the quantity of stock 

 to be fed being very large. Turnips, and all winter provision, having been 

 exhausted some weeks since, most, or all, of the fat stock was driven to the 

 markets, when the present high prices afforded a satisfactory return. We hear of 

 little or no complaint of the rot in Scotland, where their ewes are said to have 

 stood the winter well, and to promise a successful lambing season. In WALES the 

 general report is favourable, both as to the dispatch of seed culture, and the 

 appearance of the crops ; but their lambing season has been most unfortunate from 

 the prevalence of the rot, which still continues its ravages in the west. It is 

 calculated that above one-third of the flocks in the infected districts, has been 

 annihilated bv this pest, to which must be added the malign influence remaining 

 with the survivors. The natural sequence has been, a great rise in the price of 

 mutton and of store sheep, the young ewes fetching as much at market as the 



wedders, on the speculation of a recruit from increasing the number of breeding 

 flocks. In the letters from Kent, there is a noticeable silence on the extent of the 

 rot, periodical in that county, but we are informed it has prevailed to an alarming 

 degree both there and in Sussex. The price of wool, if not reduced, has been 

 rendered stationary by large importations from the continent ; however, the sheep 

 farmers having none on hand, are not, at present, materially interested in the state 

 of the market, which is expected to revive after the approaching sheep-shearing. 

 Good clean-washed long wool is yet in demand at the late prices in the western 



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