6?9 



AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



OUR lands have been, during the month, moistened by a few days of 

 light and refreshing showers, by which a proportional benefit has been ob- 

 tained for the crops of all kinds, but the old leaven of droughty and forbidding 

 weather has returned, and seems to threaten a continuance, perhaps with 

 some few favourable and slightly beneficial changes, until the date of an- 

 cient and thirsty St. Swithin, whose thirst, in many by-gone seasons, no- 

 thing under six weeks daily showers could allay. This, however, is merely 

 senile apprehension, and as the occurrence is but periodical, it may riot, 

 and we hope will not, occur during the present season. Wheat, however, 

 probably will endure drought with less of unfavourable appearance and 

 future injury than any other fanning crop, and much of it have we walked 

 over of late which has afforded a blooming, luxuriant, and promising ap- 

 pearance with, indeed, the irregularity of patches inferior in bulk and 

 strength, characteristic of the season. The accounts of this first of all 

 crops, from the different parts of the country, are on the whole favourable ; 

 from none very depressing; and should equal good fortune attend us to the 

 date of the harvest-supper, we shall have then been blessed with three 

 plentiful wheat crops. The seed season for corn and pulse may be now 

 said to be over, so little can remain unfinished, and that of turnips, man- 

 goldt, and potatoes is about to take its turn ; indeed, potatoe planting has 

 commenced, and the turnip lands generally are in a forward state, but 

 turnip seed cannot be sown with any sanguine hopes of success, without 

 the assistance of moistening and genial showers. The gout in wheat has 

 been lately announced ; and a Dorsetshire gentleman, in the ancient style of 

 misconception, whilst he has observed the effects, supposes he has disco- 

 vered the cause. But insects are not the cause, but the effect of the disseaes ; 

 the cause, in reality, being a superabundance of the vegetable juices, which 

 thence consequently stagnate, and, by an equal necessity, become the nuclus 

 of insectile ova. Such is the rule of nature, exemplified more or less in 

 every mild winter, in which the rigour of frost is wanted to check the in- 

 ordinate increase both of vegetation and the vegetable juices. Great 

 complaints are making and preparing for the attention of Parliament re- 

 specting the constant fraudulent imports of wheat from Jersey, to the ex- 

 tent of a vastly greater quantity than could possibly be produced on that 

 and the other islands together. This tour is said to be managed by the 

 old and convenient mode of the oath manufacture, so long and well k.iown 

 in the custom-house, the army, the law, and the church. We are not con- 

 fident or conceited enough, to offer any remedy for so inveterate a disease. 

 If hunger will break through stone walls, an oath has hitherto been found 

 a feeble barrier against sordid and fraudulent interest. 



The extraordinary drought of the spring has certainly had one good 

 effect, that of rendering friable and ready for culture the heavy clays which 

 had remained so long saturated with moisture, at the same time retarding 

 the seasonable progress of vegetation, yet without apparently, thus far, 

 effecting any irreparable damage to the crops, granting a timely change of 

 temperature. The barley sowing has been performed expeditiously and 

 early, and for the most part, in a tolerably good tilth, and with some 

 abatement of the old and favourite weed system, to which the state of the 

 weather has mainly contributed. The early barleys above ground, have 

 come up irregularly, as was to be expected from the state of the soil and 

 the nature of the seasons; and there can be but few regular crops, and 

 fewer good ones, unless the weather take a favourable turn. The late 

 few showers greatly improved the oats, which had put on a most unpro- 

 mising appearance ; but though, like the barley, they must be an irregular 



