600 Agricultural Report. [MAY, 



prices, at all the great marts and fairs. The rot in sheep is yet most unfortunately pre- 

 valent in Kent and in most of the western counties ; elsewhere it has been fortunately 

 escaped. In the west they have bestowed upon this too well-known disease another term-* 

 " the bane or coathe," as though a disease of different type ; and in the true style of our 

 countryfolk, high or low, who are never happy or satisfied but when they are deceived, are 

 hunting after specifics for the cure of the said coathe that is to say, a cure for disorganiza- 

 tion of the system of perfected rottenness, the patients perhaps five hundred strong ! A very 

 sensible late writer has taken the pains to assure them that prevention is the only remedy; 

 humouring them in the mean time, as he would their babes, with a few harmless and 

 plausible prescriptions. This foolery is in full force in our day, malgrt the experience of 

 centuries of which the reams of well-paid nonsense published on such subjects is an 

 evident proof. Our pigs seem not yet to have recovered from their astonishment at the 

 Irish invasion: they have been sold fat on the coasts at three-pence per pound, and 

 the price has not hitherto experienced much amendment. After all the losses on the in- 

 fected lands, the present is still deemed a successful lambing-season, and lambs are said to 

 be in great plenty. Complaints are made of the market prices of beef and mutton ; but 

 surely there is something more rationally to be alleged on the stores having been purchased 

 at too high a price. Milch cows have been unusually low in price, but they are a species 

 of stock which cannot remain long so. Previous to the late few days' frost, the apple and 

 pear trees, by their blooming appearance, portentously threatened another burdensome fruit 

 year, to the utter dismay of the cidermakers of the west, whose superabundant stock of 

 last year's cider is not now of the worth of the containing casks: thus it is in old England, 

 where plenty is sure to ruin us. Good cart-colts indeed good horses of all kindsare worth 

 whatever can be asked for them. Wool has at length, in real fact, made a small start, and 

 certainly is now convertible into money at some price. In the hop-market there is little 

 or no activity or advance of price. Hop speculations, formerly of such high account, 

 seem to have lost caste, and to have gone out of fashion. 



The accounts from Scotland of the crops are favourable, and from some of the English 

 border counties ; but the reverse as to their grazing and feeding, in which they have been 

 equally unsuccessful with us of the south. 



We have received several late letters from Ireland, which note nothing peculiar respecting 

 the season or culture, but much in a most lamentable and desponding tone on the barbarous 

 and nationally destructive system of multiplied sub-tenancy, the great curse and bane of 

 Ireland, which, by impoverishing and rendering destitute an immense population ofadscripti 

 glebce, has long since constituted them the savages of modern Europe. What must a man 

 from a state of civilization think, when, present at an Irish merry-meeting or fair, he beholds 

 a strapping fellow, with a face flushed and eyes darting fire, brandishing his weapon, and, in 

 the true spirit of Irish fun, vociferating " This night a man must die ?" This our friends 

 have seen and heard ; and even other things, if possible, more extraordinary. It is fit the 

 truth should out : this ignominy, disgrace, and misery has wretched Ireland been endowed 

 with by her absentees. The utmost which has been alleged of the former jealousy, re- 

 straint, and oppression of the English government, could never have had such fatal effects 

 had the aristocracy of Ireland performed their duty the most solid title, indeed, by which 

 they ought to hold their estates. 



The more our ministers' late donative of a repeal of the beer-duty is canvassed in the 

 country, the more it is disliked as insufficient, and probable to be attended with a very 

 trifling good effect- The cry is unanimous throughout for a repeal of the malt-tax; 

 indeed we have scarcely known any public cry more so. To the assertion that it cannot be 

 afforded, the reply is, let it be made up from a retrenchment of the superfluities and cor- 

 ruptions of government. Emigration is going forward on a very general and extensive 

 scale; and Mr. Horton's plan will not be found, in the ultimate, either so irrational or un- 

 successful as has been predicated. In Lincolnshire, and a few other counties, the labourers 

 are fully employed ; but, perhaps, in three parts of the whole country the unemployed 

 surplus is yet most alarming, and the poor's-rate constantly on the increase. Should 

 tobacco come into culture an event scarcely to be hoped, considering our long predilection 

 for neglecting all other culture for that of corn some accession to employment might thence 

 be found. The country letters are still filled with the hard-heartedness and harshness of 

 the landlords in still holding up their rents by periodical trifling douceurs and indulgences 

 in over wheat cropping, whilst their miserable dependants have wasted or are wasting all 

 their substance and property, and executions, sales, and makings over, are the order of the 

 day, throughout so great a part of the land. Under such evidences of the fact, if a joke, 

 it is surely a cruel one to doubt the existence of distress ; for 



He that hangs, or beats out's brains. 

 The devil 's in him if he feigns. 



Smithfield Beef, 3s. 4d. Mutton, 3s. 2d. to 4s. 2d Veal, 5s. lOd Pork, 3s. 8d. 

 to 5s. ; best dairy-fed, 5s. 4d. Lamb, 69. to Is. 2d. Rough Fat, 2s. 2d. 



